Mepham students experience impaired driving simulator

Mepham High School students participated in an array of immersive activities that dealt with impaired driving during the school’s Arrive Alive Tour event. 

After strapping on a pair of “drunk goggles”, Elise Lemanski and Lindsey Repper, both sophomores at Mepham High School, saw their surroundings through a disjointed haze akin to what might happen after a few drinks. Their task was Perfection, the children’s board game in which participants fit tiles into matching spots on a game board. Lemanski and Repper were timed at completing the task without goggles and their numbers almost quadrupled when the tried with the goggles on. “Imagine you’re driving and someone jumps in front of your car,” said Jerry Assa, of the Community Parent Center. “Are you going to be able to react in time to save a life?” 

In addition to completing different tasks with the hindrance of wearing “drunk goggles,” students participated in an array of immersive activities during the school’s Arrive Alive Tour event. Representatives from the prevention program provided a simulator of what it is like to drive while impaired. Students sat in a car and pretended to drive, either with “drunk goggles” or while texting. Their actions were recorded on a screen in an animated simulator. Students watched as their peers figuratively ran into a pedestrian or drove off the side of the road.

“We feel if we can make one kid make the right decision then we’ve done our job,” said Wendy Tepfer, the Director of the Community Parent Center.

The event also featured a machine provided by the New York State Troopers referred to as a “seatbelt convincer,” which simulates a car crash at five-seven miles per hour. The Herald reporter experienced the simulator, buckling into a seat raised to the top of an inclined slide. The seat then dropped down the slide and crashed against a metal bar at the end of it, propelling the reporter forward and against his seatbelt.

The Arrive Alive Tour comes to all three high schools in the district once a year through physical education and health classes. It is hosted by the Community Parent Center and funded by state and county grants as well as a donation from the Allyson Rosenblatt Memorial Fund.