Inaugural Drunk-Driving Week Delivers Hard-Hitting Lessons in Reality

Author: Meghan Keenan

Last week's Drunk Driving Awareness Week marked the first endeavor to devote an entire week's worth of activities to raising awareness about the dangerous, yet frequently practiced, act of drunken driving. Organized by Cook Commons Residential Assistant Sean Hoskins, the idea for the weeklong initiative originated in February at a weekly CRA meeting.
The CRA meetings provide an opportunity for Middlebury graduates to productively use their fifth year at Middlebury College to offer information and activities to benefit the students, having already experienced the lifestyle themselves. As few proposals were being presented at these meetings, Hoskins found the support of the CRAs to be the perfect outlet to infuse his concern about drunken driving into the student body.
Along with the other CRAs, as well as many organizations from around the town and state, Hoskins gathered the resources to organize a series of events dedicated to calling attention to this far too common trend.
The events included in the weeklong program included the display of a car as it would look having been involved in a drunken driving accident; a presentation by Tracy Simon about the logistics of drunken driving, as well as her own personal experience of being involved in a drunken driving accident; White Out Day, in which students simulated the number of drunken driving-related deaths by painting their faces white and wearing white shirts; a student panel presentation by those affected by drunken driving; a simulation by the Middlebury Rescue Squad in which the Jaws of Life were used to remove "victims" from a car wrecked by drunken driving and an obstacle course in which students navigated a cone obstacle course, while wearing goggles impairing their vision as if they were drunk.
Hoskins was pleased with the way the events unfolded and believes "the entire week was successful in that it started conversation." Hoskins found the most effective events to be the car on display in back of Pearsons and the White Out Day. The White Out Day reflected the statistic that drunken driving kills two people every hour and demonstrated this by having two students paint their face white or put on a white shirt each hour of the day.
He attributed the success of these two events to the fact that students were not forced to go out of their way to encounter their message.
Hoskins also found the Jaws of Life simulation to be extremely effective, especially having been involved in the demonstration himself. The Middlebury Volunteer Rescue Squad, comprised entirely of Middlebury students, used the Jaws of Life to extract Hoskins and another female passenger from the front seat of the car, while the third "victim" lay on the ground outside the car, having been ejected upon contact. Hoskins said, "The volunteers really amazed me and they were just incredible."
The use of posters placed around campus also drew attention to the frightening statistics resulting from drunken driving. In contrast to much of the previous publicity regarding drunken driving that emphasized the positive number of students who don't participate in this dangerous act, these posters exposed the harsh reality of the amount of students who do choose to act irresponsibly. For example, one dramatic poster reports that although "88 percent of Middlebury students have not driven drunk in the past year, that means 250 have... I am concerned... you should be too."
Even Steele's Towing Company of Middlebury has reported that the number of cars towed due to students receiving DUIs in town has recently been increasing. These statistics show that drunken driving does present a problem on the Middlebury campus and needs to be addressed.
Drunk Driving Awareness Week also coincided with Student Government Association elections, in which many of the candidates included the issue of drunken driving within their platforms. The candidates stressed the need for more on campus drinking options in order to provide a safe place for students to drink, so they don't feel the need to drive off campus in an attempt to avoid security. Options such as citation reform, TIPS reform, lengthening of the hours of registered parties and the possibility of an on-campus bar were all introduced as initiatives hoping to reduce the temptation to drive drunk.
Overall, the week was a great success and Hoskins "hopes this sort of thing can continue to happen every year from now on." He was very pleased with the support he received from many organizations, including Budweiser, which contributed many educational materials, Mr. Ups, which provided incentives for designated drivers, and the Vermont Government Highway Safety Program.
Furthermore, Hoskins hopes to stress the need for more communication, especially from parents to students before their first year. Oftentimes, he feels there is little preparation for this sort of behavior and thus the attitudes and assumptions from students surrounding this issue become skewed and they perceive that it is acceptable since everyone does it once in a while.
This past week, however, provided an optimistic outlook that students are concerned about this issue and are looking for change.