Somers students get virtual lessons on distracted driving. It drove home a message: ‘How not worth it’ it is to text at the wheel.
The Save a Life Tour stopped in Somers this week, offering students some facts, statistics and stories about distracted driving, as well as a chance to get a sense of what driving distracted feels like on a simulated driving machine.
The simulator stations have a steering wheel and gas and brake pedals, connected to a video screen, which shows a series of roadways resembling a typical town, complete with cars, trucks, buses, curbs, trees, buildings and pedestrians. Accompanying the driving simulator is a smartphone that the user holds, and must try to answer texts.
While navigating the simulation, the drivers are asked simple questions, like “What time do you want to get food later?” or “What is your favorite fruit?” The purpose is to answer as many questions as possible, while trying to stay on the virtual road without incident, which none found easy to do.
“As I was answering the phone, the wheel would seem to vibrate and shift over to one side. I kept getting text messages every 15, 20 second or so. It was just difficult to answer them while driving,” said senior Connor Marchi. “The simulator does a good job of accurately depicting how it is to drive distracted. It does a good job of showing us kids how dangerous and how hard it is, and how ‘not worth it’ it is.”
”I was nervous,” said senior Samantha Peacock. “It’s weird. It’s obviously different than driving an actual car, but just looking away for a second, the wheel turns to the left or the right and you miss it. Meanwhile, the light is turning green. I was slow, but I was nervous. It’s hard to do two things at once. Even if people say they are a multi-tasker, you can’t be a multi-tasker at everything. That’s just not how life works.”
The presentation was brought to the school via the Connecticut Department of Transportation. CJ Rich, who is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has traveled the country visiting schools since the early 2000s. Rich also brought the tour to Enfield High School on Feb. 1 and 2.
Somers High School Resource Officer Craig Jones helped facilitate the program, which started there in 2022.
“We’ve had good response from the students,” Jones said. “I’ve actually had parents call me after this, to say that their students were talking about it and didn’t realize some of the things they had learned from CJ and I during the presentation.”
“We’ve been around for about 20 years now. We elaborate on safe driving, but we also depict texting and driving and impaired driving,” he said. “We would bring this to every school in America if we could.”
After completing the simulations, students were asked to complete a quick survey, and take a pledge to not drive distracted.
The students all attended an assembly earlier that morning, which included statistics (1 person dies every 52 minutes from DUI crashes, for example) a video about distracted driving, via real-life stories.
“It was stories that involved distracted driving incidents that, most of the time, resulted in a death,” Marchi said, adding that he felt the seriousness hit home with him and his classmates.
“The video almost made me cry. A girl had lost her mother,” Peacock said. “It’s dangerous.”
Marchi said he feels that his fellow students, and many adults, do drive with some sort of distracting activity on a regular basis.
“Definitely,” he said. “I think it goes beyond the kids in school. I think it’s a world-[wide] thing. I think a lot of people, whether they want to admit it or not, are distracted when they’re driving. It’s not good for the roads at all.”
For more information, visit www.savealifetour.com.
