MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — The Arrive Alive Tour, the nation's leading drunk and distracted driving awareness initiative, made a stop in Mount Sterling.
"There's a real important message behind it," Jalen Burress said.
Using a safe, stationary vehicle, students get to experience what it's like to drive while impaired or distracted, and this program is the only one in the country with a marijuana simulator.
"The drivers can choose to have it set to where they are driving drunk, drugged, or distracted by their cell phones," Burress noted.
Burress is the event coordinator for this interactive and educational program.
Students described their experience after putting on the VR Headgear.
"It was really testy," Ashlyn Jones said.
"Toughest part was keeping the car straight," Will Compton noted.
The experience features sensors on the gas pedal, break and steering wheel.
"It was really hard to move the steering wheel, like I moved it a little bit, and I was on the other side of the road," Jones noted.
"It seems like everything I was trying to do, it wouldn't do it right," Compton added.
After students take a turn, the program coordinator goes over citations to show what they did wrong along the way.
"Obviously it's not real, so they know they are not getting a ticket, but they get to see what violations they made and they're pretty confident in their ability to drive normally," Burress noted.
As for the ultimate goal of the program?
"We hope to spread something positive while still giving people a good experience," Burress said.
Kentucky has the highest teen driver fatality rate in the nation with 72.4 deaths per 100,000 teen drivers for the second straight year.
