JEROMESVILLE — An 18-year-old swerved around a bend with a blood alcohol level well over the legal limit, driving over traffic cones with several getting jammed in the wheels of the vehicle.
Soon after an adult did the same, seeing double and unable to stay within the boundaries of the path ahead.
This impaired driving did not occur on a roadway but within the confines of the Hillsdale high school front lawn. The high BAC, a result of vision impairment goggles; the vehicle, a golf cart.
Hillsdale High School students and staff learned about driver safety through simulated impaired driving scenarios Wednesday afternoon. The hands-on program is a first for Hillsdale and the region. Ashland County school resource officers plan to expand it to all county high schools throughout the spring, including Loudonville, Mapleton, Ashland City and Black River.
Five Hillsdale students and one faculty member attempted to navigate a course set up on the front lawn marked with traffic cones, styrofoam noodles and other objects, all the while wearing vision impairment goggles to mimic driving while intoxicated.
“When there’s two cones, it looks like there’s four,” said special education director Deana Gilmore, the faculty member who volunteered to complete the course.
Participating students agreed, several exclaiming “I have no idea where I am,” or asking “Am I going the right way?” mid-course.
Hillsdale’s school resource officer deputy Brian Martin rode alongside the drivers, preventing accidents using a second brake. Martin has been a member of the Ashland County Sheriff’s Department for 22 years and has covered Hillsdale Local Schools’ three buildings for the past four years.
He proposed the impaired driving simulation to Hillsdale High School principal Davis Baker around October 2020.
“I’ve taught in the classrooms for four years now through the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program and I wanted to get the kids more experience, rather than just sitting in the classroom,” Martin said. “You can only do that so many times until they’re like, ‘Well, I’ve heard this before.’”
Vision impairment goggles had been a staple in his classes. One day as he watched a group of fifth graders wear them while attempting to walk in straight lines, the idea to expand the use of the goggles popped into his head.
“I’m thinking, how can I enhance this experience for these kids? A golf cart would be great,” Martin said.
Since then, Baker worked to secure sponsorships to purchase the golf cart, ownership of which the sheriff’s department and school now share.
“For a principal, when you have people that have great ideas, it’s our job to do what we can to see if we can make that happen,” Baker said.
Park National Bank of Loudonville and Bendon Publishing International sponsored the golf cart, with PNB manager Brian Hinkle and co-founder/president of Bendon Publishing International Ben Ferguson present for the inaugural use Wednesday.
“If we save one life in Ashland County from this program, it’s worth both the checks that we cut ten times,” Hinkle said.
Ferguson, a Hillsdale graduate, and Hinkle, a Loudonville graduate, moved past their high school rivalries to team up on the simulation project, which they hope will benefit the entire county.
Bendon is a children’s education company, so the goal of the impaired driving simulation tied into the company’s core values, Ferguson said.
“Having four children, two of which are at the driving age, this demonstration and presentation certainly hits home for me,” Ferguson added.
In the video above, a sergeant with Ohio Army National Guard, Tyler Weaver, who had been speaking with students during lunch periods, decided to try out the impaired driving simulation himself.
“It was definitely harder than I expected,” Weaver said after the course.
Hillsdale’s Future Farmers of America members created and installed the makeshift second brake, including Gage Madsen, Logan Smith, Jax Rogers and Owen Hoffman.
Before students and staff took turns driving, the program began in the auditorium with a driver safety presentation, which Ohio State Highway Patrol post commander Brad Bishop and Ashland County Sheriff E. Wayne Risner helped create. Part of the presentation involved showing a real-world example of a distracted driving accident, an OSHP video titled “Sarah’s Story,” specifically about texting while driving.
According to OSHP, there were 2,759 distracted driving violations in Ohio in 2021. In 2022, there have been 1,487 distracted driving violations, as of March 14.
For Ashland County, there were 28 distracted driving violations in 2021, and there have been 14 so far in 2022, also as of March 14.
Martin and Baker said they also plan to add a texting and driving component to the hands-on simulation in the future, tasking participants to drive timed courses while simultaneously texting. Martin also hopes to get Mothers Against Drunk Driving on board eventually and to expand the program beyond the county, he said.
“To my understanding I’ve never heard of any other agencies in the state of Ohio that have run something like this,” Martin said. “It’s new to everybody, so hopefully this catches on and other counties will hear about it.”
Have other places attempted impaired driving simulations?
School districts in Ohio and across the country have driver safety programs, including some hands-on simulations like Hillsdale’s, virtual reality scenarios and programs where distracted driving accidents are acted out.
Similar to Hillsdale’s program, the Drunk, Drugged, and Distracted Driving Simulator run by a Kentucky sheriff’s office involves a driver wearing vision impairment goggles while driving with a trained mentor in the passenger seat.
This program also allows for backseat passengers who “realize the helpless position they would be put in as passengers in the car of an impaired driver,” according to the program description.
Other schools have done exercises in vehicles — but with the vehicles immobilized. This is the case with the “Arrive Alive Tour,” where students wear a virtual reality headset while sitting in a car with its battery disabled. The “Arrive Alive Tour” has an impaired driving component Hillsdale’s does not, a marijuana driving simulator.
In other programs that use virtual reality, students are not in an actual vehicle but wear a headset that mimics impaired vision, such as Poland High School in Ohio. Poland’s program also included a texting and driving portion, but instead of virtual reality, it involved a cell phone and a computer screen with a driving scenario.
Other simulations have focused more so on the effects of impaired driving.
For example, over in Washington State Bellevue High School plays out a mock drunk driving accident resulting in arrests, injuries and deaths. Real-life first responders, firetrucks and police cars are included in the scenario. Students practice the scenario for weeks and present it to the entire school.
Because Wednesday was the first time Hillsdale’s simulation occurred, there is no data available yet regarding its effectiveness. However, studies on comparable programs can provide insight into its potential effectiveness.
When it comes to the efficacy of single classes or events meant to curb impaired driving — such as public service announcement videos, interactive demonstrations and group discussions — before and after surveys are often used to assess changes in attitudes and behavioral intentions.
In some cases, studies have found students had increased awareness of distracted driving and intended to change their behavior after the intervention. However, other studies found no change in self-reported behavior after interventions.
Studies involving more hands-on demonstrations of the dangers of distracted driving — which are perhaps more comparable to Hillsdale’s approach — have shown results of increased awareness of distracted driving and changed intentions.
Even so, many of these available studies measure short-term impacts, either a few weeks or months after intervention, so lasting impacts are largely unknown.
Martin said he plans to gather anecdotal feedback from students in the following weeks through “Talk About It Tuesdays,” where he and guidance counselors invite students to share thoughts on topics during lunch periods.
For those who did the course, such as Gilmore, their immediate feedback Wednesday was that the experience was eye-opening.
“I think it’s an experience everybody should go through before they make that decision of getting behind the wheel and taking that drink,” Gilmore said. “I think most of us still think it’s not going to happen to us.”
