Arrive Alive Tour Offers Drunk Driving Lessons to New York Students

On behalf of Law Offices of Young & Bartlett, L.L.P. posted in Drunk Driving Accidents on Thursday, September 29, 2011

In a recent scheduled stop at Cayuga Community College in New York, the Arrive Alive Tour simulation helped students understand the inherent dangers in drunk driving with the hopes of limiting the amount of drunk driving accidents across the state. The Sept. 26 visit was one of the most recent stops in the program’s tour, which travels across the country offering educational materials to college students, with special emphasis on the wrongful death that can arise from a drunk driving crash.

For students, the most popular portion of the tour is the drunk driving simulator, which provides a look into what it’s like to drive while intoxicated. Simulator participants are given a set of goggles that emulate the impairment faced by drunk drivers. The goggles are set to a blood alcohol level of 0.081, just above New York’s designation of “intoxicated.”

Participants first perform a control experiment, driving a simulated course without the goggles. Then, students are asked to drive the same course with the goggles on. Monitors allow onlookers to see what the driver is seeing, and judge his or her performance.

During the Cayuga Community College stop, only one participant was able to clear the course without being involved in an accident, but that person was driving 20 miles per hour below the posted speed limit.

The Arrive Alive Tour offers a similar simulator for texting and driving, a problem that tour organizers are also taking seriously. While participants tend to be involved in fewer accidents in the texting simulator, there is still clear impairment with all people that take part. This was a special attraction for the New York stop, as earlier this year the state passed a new law making it illegal to use a cellphone while driving, even if the driver commits no other offense.