Ronnie Garrett
Editorial Director
Law Enforcement Technology magazine
Last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at Oceanside, California’s El Camino High School to deliver some horrific news: Several classmates had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend. Things quickly turned chaotic, with many of the kids openly weeping, and some becoming hysterical and inconsolable.
Their pain turned to fury a few hours later when the teens learned the “deaths†were part of a “scared straight†exercise to teach them the consequences of drinking and driving. Parents and students alike questioned the tactic and thought it unnecessarily traumatized the kids.
The school’s guidance counselor Lori Tauber defended their shocking methods, saying “they [the students] were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized. That’s how they get the message.â€
As a mother, I’ll admit my first reaction was that I’d be pretty angry if they did that to my kids. My gut reaction was that this exercise taught kids nothing more than adults have no respect for their feelings, and that cops lie and are not to be trusted. These are definitely not messages we want impressionable children to receive and believe.
Then I considered my own teen years and my perspective quickly changed. Being kind of a quiet and unassuming person, people are often shocked to learn I was among the wildest of teenagers. Like many teens, my friends and I viewed ourselves as omnipotent. We never once considered the consequences of our actions, especially those involving motor vehicles. We thought:
- Speeding down curvy, Northern Wisconsin roads was cool.
- We had it “all under control†when we drank and drove.
- Playing “chicken†with a motor vehicle or car surfing was a way to have fun.
The fact is teens only think about the consequences of these actions when someone they know dies – and even then their concern doesn’t last that long. Four teens die in a car crash involving alcohol and two years later some of their younger classmates die under the influence. A teenager loses his life car surfing and three years later another young person dies on the same road, doing the same thing.
Take a look at some of the facts involving teen drivers: The CDC reports the risk of motor vehicle crashes is higher among 16- to 19-year-olds than any other age group. See “Teen Drivers Fact Sheet†at
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/teenmvh.htm.
- While teenagers account for 10 percent of the U.S. population, they are responsible for 12 percent of motor vehicle crash deaths. n Teens are more likely than older drivers to underestimate hazardous situations or dangerous situations or not be able to recognize hazardous situations.
- Teens have the lowest rate of seat belt use.
- In 2005, 23 percent of drivers, ages 15 to 20, who died in motor vehicle crashes had a BAC of 0.08 g/dl or higher. That same year nearly 30 percent of teens reported that within the previous month, they had ridden with a driver who had been drinking alcohol, and one in 10 reported having driven after drinking alcohol within the same one-month period.
But what if teens receive a message like the one sent by the Oceanside (California) Police Department every couple years? After looking at the facts, I find I’m all for such scare tactics if they make even one teenager think twice about doing something stupid behind the wheel of a car, especially if that teenager is one of my own.
At the school assembly announcing the hoax, students reportedly held posters that read: “Death is real. Don’t play with our emotions.â€
I say “Death is real,†and educators and law enforcers should do whatever it takes to get that message across to those young people who think dying happens to someone else. There’s a vast difference between thinking a friend has “died†for a few hours versus having a friend who really is dead. In one the trauma is short lived and quickly forgotten, in the other the trauma is life long.
If I had been at the assembly, I think my poster might have read: “Death is real, and don’t you forget it.â€
