NEWS RELEASE: Roseville High School Students to Experience Dangers of Distracted Driving
Roseville High Schools students will experience firsthand the dangers of distracted and impaired driving when the Save A Life Tour visits the school on February 24, 2025. Save A Life Tour is a combination of fact-based lectures and interactive simulations which allow students to experience the potential consequences of poor driving decisions.
Roseville High School Principal Jason Bettin said that students who are enrolled in health class will participate in the event. “It is a natural fit with the curriculum for that class and the Save A Life Tour is something we hope to expand on and have yearly. Health class became a great option since all students must take health, usually in their freshmen and sophomore years, which is also when most students take drivers training.”
The program specifically places emphasis on common student driving situations, including improper driver behavior, safety restraints, impaired driving, distracted driving, and motorcycle awareness. The Save A Life Tour utilizes a variety of methods for educating and demonstrating the effects and consequences that are direct results of poor choices and/or decisions made by operators of a motor vehicle. A fact-based lecture will also be provided by facilitators, including informative visual presentations showing actual footage and pictures of crashes, victim stories, and simulations for the effects of impaired and distracted driving behavior.
Students will learn about the driving dangers through several activities. A virtual reality impaired driving simulator will illustrate the dangers of impaired driving from a sober perspective by showing how alcohol and drugs can affect a driver's reaction time, motor skills, and judgment. A stationary distracted/texting and driving simulator, complete with a smartphone that the student will use to send and receive text messages, shows how distraction affects reaction time with a split-second delay that will cause participants to demonstrate tendencies similar to that of a distracted driver. Two monitors will also be on hand to display videos pertaining to destructive decisions regarding impaired driving and distracted driving as well showing the consequences of the poor choices that were made and how the families are affected.
Bettin said that the Save A Life Tour program directly ties into teaching students responsibility, healthy decisions, and safety. “We know teenagers can succumb to peer pressure, living in a world where they are very connected to their phones and devices. As they start to get to one of the most major responsibilities of their young lives, the ability to drive a car, we want to make sure they understand how important it is to be aware of the power of car and the serious harm that can be caused if they don't treat it that way.”
Based out of Grand Rapids, the Save A Life Tour has traveled around the world to show firsthand the deadly consequences of unsafe driving practices and choices. This program has been presented to students at over 1500 different colleges and universities and over 600 different high schools across the country. The program was purchased for the school through a Macomb County grant.
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