Wednesday, 31 January 2007 06:30
CHP's Right Turn Program
A 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.
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.