School is back to normal for Winston Churchill High School students after staff parents and volunteer students collaborated Thursday and Friday to stage a fatal car accident in front of the school.
The events at the Potomac, Md. school were connected to the “Every Fifteen Minutes” program. More than 50 schools were involved this year.
The “Every Fifteen Minutes” strategy is to show students how ugly things could get if they decide to drink and drive or text and drive. “My oldest is here at the school and I saw this program and I just wanted to jump in headfirst because I feel it is a huge problem,” said Amy Smith, co-chair of the committee that hosted the event.
Leading up to the staged crash, students were told every 15 minutes that their classmate, who is really alive and a volunteer in the program, died in a car accident. Every 15 minutes someone dies in a car accident as a result of drunken driving and organizers use the exercise to drive home the point.
“We hope that by students experiencing just a small taste of the loss that they would feel if one of their friends, one of their classmates was lost to a stupid choice of drinking and driving or distracting themselves with texting while they’re driving that they will make better choices,” said John Taylor, assistant principal at the school.
After the morning announcements, a 911 call was played over the intercom and a crying “drunken driver” told the operator she crashed in front of the school. Students were then called outside and the scene began. Sirens of the fire department and the screams of student volunteers combined with hours of professional makeup, a totaled car, as well as blood and guts on the pavement made the outside of the school resemble a movie death scene.
Statistics provided by distraction.gov suggest Americans text 50 percent more than in 2009. The fear is that, as more and more Americans text, more will take these habits to the road.
Students at Winston CHurchill High School show the effects of distracted driving
“We do have so many injuries and unfortunately fatalities with the young population because of drinking while driving and also distracted driving whether it be texting or just listening to the radio,” said Kathleen Dayton, an EMS Caption Paramedic with the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department.
In 2007 AAA conducted a survey with 1,000 teens and found that 46 percent of teens text and drive. But for teens like Dara Winter a student a Winston Churchill High School, the events Thursday and Friday just reinforced the good habits she already has. “I never would anyway,” Winter said.