Simulator Drives Home Its Message Device Mimics How Car Acts With Drunken Driver

Jokes and laughter flew Tuesday in West Valley High School’s parking lot.

So did orange traffic cones.

More than 600 students, climbed three and four at a time into a zippy Dodgy Neon equipped as a drunken-driving simulator. Many students, including all without a driver’s license, rode as passengers. The brave ones drove.

The drill was simple. Each driver took a spin around a curvy course under their own power. Then, the Neon’s co-pilot, a representative from Chrysler Corp., punched information into an on-board computer.

Once programmed with the driver’s weight and a hypothetical number of drinks, the car’s controls operated like, well, like a drunken driver. The steering wheel dragged badly, and the brakes worked only after a programmed delay.

Time after time, the sharpest turn on the course proved too much for the “impaired” drivers, and the traffic cones skidded, crunched and flew.

Even athletic director Wayne McKnight wiped out a row of cones during his turn in the Neon.

“Oops, that was a mailbox,” quipped Sheila Gamel, the co-pilot, to one student driver. “Now you’re out in the neighbors’ yard.”

The Neon team completely mutilates a set of traffic cones about every three weeks, Gamel said.

As a final risk, two crosswalks complete the course, each with its own mechanical “pedestrian” ready to pop up at the last minute.

One student was so ready to avoid an accident she jammed on the brakes, even though no pedestrian figure was upright at the time.

Students assisting the organizers took turns running the remote controls on the pedestrians. They also kept track of how many times the pedestrians were knocked down.

“That’s 36 kills!” hooted one student.

The high spirits didn’t faze Gamel.

“We don’t preach to the kids,” she said. “But after we’ve been at a school, teachers tell us that when they go inside and they talk to their girlfriend or their boyfriend, they get serious. They say, ‘Gee, I could have killed someone.’ Or, ‘That was scary.”’

And, she added realistically, “we can’t reach everybody.”

“It might be fun now, but if it was really happening, it wouldn’t be fun. It would be scary,” said Rikki Sullivan, a West Valley senior.

The drunk-driving simulator will be at Central Valley High School on Friday.