News
Assembly
highlights safe choices behind the wheel
Students use cell phones to answer poll questions
May 12, 2010
"This is a tough topic to talk about," Mohonasen High School Principal David Collins said at the opening of the DWI/Texting While Driving assembly, which was held today. "Its even tougher to talk about with people you care about."
"We do this because we care," he added.
Typically, Mohonasen High School officials hold an annual Mock DWI crash event and an assembly. However, this year's mock crash was canceled due to the weather. The goal of both presentations is to raise student awareness prior to prom, ball and graduation season. Click here to see a video and pictures from last year's Mock DWI Crash.
As this year's assembly, Collins talked about not only the dangers of drinking or taking drugs and driving, but of what he called "distracted driving." He told a story about how he was leaving work 10 years ago and a driver, who was eating a bag of Cheetos, plowed into his car.
"Texting, purposely speeding, weaving in an out... those are just as dangerous," he said.
During the assembly, students watched two videos. The first was a public service announcement produced in England and it showed the dangers of texting while driving. The video starts with three teenagers in a car, talking and listening to music. The driver then starts typing a text message on her phone and veers across the center line, hitting an oncoming car. You see what happens to the girls inside the car during the accident. You see the blood and the trauma. You see the ambulances and the helicopter arrive. You see the little girl in the other car asking why her parents won't wake up.
The
second video tells the story of two sisters who were killed when the
older sister purchased alcohol with a fake ID, drove drunk and
veered off the road into a telephone pole. Throughout the video the
girls' parents talk about the loss of their daughters and how it has
affected their lives.
Several times throughout the assembly, students were polled on different questions. Using the latest technology, students responded to each poll question using their cell phones and the results were displayed on the screen before them in real time.
The first question asked students to guess how many students died nationwide in alcohol-related accidents in 2005. The answer was 676.
"That's more than half of our high school," Assistant Principal Tim Hulihan said. "That's a lot of people. That's a lot of missed experiences."
The images below show each of the poll questions and how students responded (please click on the thumbnail to view the larger image).
After the assembly, school leaders noted that they were struck by the response to poll question number three, where 58 percent of students who answered the poll said they would have a hard time calling a parent for a ride because they had been drinking.
"We showed students a video with two parents who wish more than anything else in the world that their daughters had picked up the phone and called them for a ride home," Collins said. "I would urge all Mohonasen parents to take note of the answer to this poll question and talk to their child about these issues."
Anyone who would like to see the two videos that were shown at the assembly can do so by following these links:
