High School Revisits Anti-Drunken Driving Program

Life's lessons are best learned through experience. Unfortunately, when the target audience is teens and the topic is drinking and driving, experience is not the teacher of choice.

On April 25 and 26, Hillsborough High School, with the cooperation of the Hillsborough Police, Fire, and EMS departments, held an “Every 15 Minutes” Program to reinforce the lessons for students by recreating a response to a fatal accident.

This marked the third time Hillsborough High School held this drinking and driving awareness program.

The Every 15 Minutes Program is a model of both school and community-based alcohol prevention that incorporates simulated alcohol-related consequences with community elements that include students, parents, educators, school administrators, health systems, and law enforcement personnel.

Thursday morning, activities were held in school emphasizing the fact that someone is killed in an alcohol-related car accident every 15 minutes. In the afternoon, a simulated traffic accident was held at the high school in the large parking lot near Amwell Road.

The senior class and staff watched emergency services remove fatalities and injured students. Police "arrested" and "booked" the guilty driver, the victim of the accident was taken to the morgue, and the injured taken to Somerset Medical Center.

All sequences were recorded to be shared with the student body at a later time.

Submitted by Kia Bergman