Wednesday, 31 January 2007 06:30

CHP's Right Turn Program

slide24A new CHP program is trying to deter teens from drinking and driving. According to the CHP statistics because of the increasingly lower age of alcohol and drug users, motor-vehicle accidents are now the leading cause of death for people ages 15 to 20. This new program, The Right turn Program, is aimed at middle schoolers for an early outreach to educate kids on the dangers of not only drinking and driving, but also how to recognize and handle situations where drinking and drugs are being used around them.
slide25 Right Turn features no lectures, just an officer chatting with students and a powerful DVD based partly on the MTV cable television show "Punk'd." The DVD was produced by Ogilvy, a worldwide public-relations and advertising agency. In the DVD, as in "Punk'd," a hidden camera is set up to see if unsuspecting teenagers will get into a car despite evidence that the driver is drunk. As students watch the video they see more than half of the sober teens get in the car with the drunk driver. The DVD also contains testimonials from teens who lost eyes, limbs or a best friend. But it's not a "scared straight" program, according to the CHP. Each student leaves with a tote bag with a green plastic bracelet and a dog tag. There was also a "Get Home Safe" sheet, which helps students devise a plan including support phone numbers in the event they are faced with a real drunken-driving situation. The program hopes to reach 5,000 middle school students throughout the state and is funded by a federal grant through the California Office of Traffic Safety and the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency.