CHS mock wreck drives home anti-drinking and driving message

Wednesday morning, students at Coffee High School witnessed in shocking detail the potential consequences of drinking and driving. In observance of Red Ribbon Week, which is a week set aside each October to warn kids of all ages of the dangers of alcohol and drugs, Coffee County Family Connection, in conjunction with the CHS Drama Club, FBLA, the sheriff’s office, Coffee County Fire Department, Coffee County Air-Evac, EMS, and Sims Funeral Home, set up a wreck scene outside the CHS gym.

The realistic scene featured two cars that had just had a head-on collision with accident victims both inside and outside the vehicles. The cause of the mock wreck was drinking and driving, and two of the “victims” were deceased. The others suffered serious injuries, one of which was taken on a stretcher to an Air-Evac helicopter that landed on the grounds of the high school.

According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), 10,265 people died as a result of drunk driving crashes last year alone – a rate of one every 51 minutes. Drunk driving costs the U.S. about $132 billion per year. About 27 people die per day because of drunk driving.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that one in 10 teens in the U.S. drinks and drives. Teens are 17 times more likely to die in an auto crash if they have a blood alcohol concentration of .08 percent or higher. One in five teen drivers involved in fatal wrecks had some amount of alcohol in their systems in 2010.

Clearly, drinking and driving is and remains a problem among teens. However, the CDC reports that drinking and driving is down 54 percent since 1991. Through projects like this mock wreck, maybe that number will decrease even more.