How do you feel about this MADD Hoax?
 

Terrible, awful idea.

Death should never be tempted by such hoaxes. Sue the school board, the police department, and anyone of the scumbags involved in this.

If I was a parent, and my kid came home and told me about a hoax the school pulled off like that, I'd want somebody's ass to fry.

Don't manipulate children. Period.

UKking, it's obvious you don't have kids.

Is this in the best of taste? No. Did it cause any permanent harm? No.

You could sue over this. You would lose and then have to pay the defense costs of whoever you targeted. Others here would call it a frivolous suit; I won't because I hate that term. It is a meritless suit since I don't think that you could prove any harm was done. If it was, then the message got through and the kids will lay off the boozen driving.

I don't have any sort of problem with this sort of thing, namely because a kid in my graduating class in high school was in a drunk driving accident about 3 months before graduation. Thankfully it was a one car accident, and he was the only one hurt, but he was still in rehab when we graduated.

And don't manipulate children? Please. Anyone who's been around a 2 year old for longer than 5 minutes knows that the ONLY way to get them to do what they're told is to manipulate them into cooperating. And unless and until you're ready to start taking on the toy, breakfast cereal and entertainment industries, your indignant stand against manipulation by the schools looks pretty shallow.

GREAT idea. I will suggest it to some friends of mine still in high school, although since this is getting so much publicity, kids will be wary in the future.

I like the idea. Teenager thoughts aren't very deep and it's hard to hold their attention for... what was I talking about? Oh, yeah longer then a couple seconds. Anything to get them thinking about the issue is good.

If I remember right when films such as "red pavement" hit class rooms some parents were pissed at that too.

UK, you obviously don't know about the area in which this happened.

Oceanside is about 1 hour from Tijuana Mexico.

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley which was 2.5 hours from Mexico.

Drinking age in CA is 21. Drinking age in Mexico is 18 or $3.25 whichever you are. At one point I know they started cracking down to restrict closer to 18 but really it is very much a So Cal thing to do on the weekends to drive to TJ get plastered and walk back across the border and DRIVE home.

I can't tell you how many people I helped or carried across the border in Mexico who were just too wasted to do anything but passout.

I know all about it because I was usually the designated driver and I didn't drink a single thing the entire night until I got home or the hotel sometimes at 6am. I can tell you that there were many small fender benders around that time period, of people who drove as far away as Bakersfield to party on the weekends. With the price of gas it is now may not be as problematic, but it still will happen.

UK, you're going to be the minority here obviously, this is brilliant.

The people who weren't going to drink and drive anyway will only have their attitude reenforced, and the people who didn't give it a 2nd thought, will.

this is one of those messages that have to be pushed consistently throughout each year since every year, thousands of new drivers are getting on the roads without any previous experience.

They certainly do not need alcohol in the mix

They do this at high schools around these parts; my best friend's sister played one of the dead students in their version of this. At my high school they made us watch accidents that occurred due to drunk driving, and then took us outside to show us a car that had been in such an accident and demonstrate how long it takes for the jaws of life to cut open a wrecked car and get people out of it. Personally, I think it's a good eye-opener for a lot of people.

I like the idea and after seeing this I plan to ask our school admins if they have such plans. IMO kids are oversaturated with info and advice about this and presenting it again in a highly impacting manner is beneficial. For those children who are emotionally too fragile to handle this, the parents might want to consider other kinds of help to toughen the kids up for real life.

Now that my two boys are approaching driving age, though they are only 12 & 13 now, I want them to be very aware...even overly aware...of the consequences of driving under the influence.

At what point do we draw the line for acceptable levels of deception? The general consensus seems to be that this particular incident was acceptable. How does it compare to the incident in which the shooting was staged in the elementary school?

(Just for the record, I have no problem with what went on in this hoax, just trying to draw a comparison.)

After my 19 year-old cousin and three of his classmates,
were killed in a drunken car crash after drag racing,

With the parents permission, the police put what was left of the
shattered vehicle on one end of the football field...the week before
'Homecoming.' Quite the reality check.

I agree with what Badnick says.

A shooting staged at the school plays on the safety that one feels in school. If they were to stage something like that I'd probably agree it's over the line.

The difference is that school is supposed to feel and be safe.

Seeing carnage from a wreck is very effective to remind people that bad things happen.

Has it been demonstrated that such activities actual decrease drunk driving deaths, drunk driving, or even attitudes about drunk driving in the long term (over other methods of education)? I'm all for letting high school students out of class and scaring them, but if it isn't demonstrably better, why waste the time and resources?

I'm wondering the same thing.

If this is a proven effective method of reducing drunk driving incidents among teens and young adults then it's a valuable program. If it isn't it's a stupid waste of time that borders on cruel.

Never underestimate the 'it can't happen to me' factor. My hunch is that by the time the kids get to high school and/or driving age it's too late to teach responsibility. This sort of thing begins at home and no amount of shock factor can change that.

I think it's an awesome idea. Would fully support it if it was used on my kids.

In my high school they rolled three paraplegics onto the stage during an assembly to talk about their drunk-driving wrecks. Pretty damn effective.

here is more information on the program

http://www.every15minutes.com

It seems to be that the program is being touted across the nation with training across America.

The article makes it much more sensationalistic versus the actual:

Righteous indignation be damned in the face of facts where probably some if not most of the kids found it to be more "farce" than something as shocking as being notified a fellow student was killed by some officer walking in to announce it to the class.

Now that I think of it, it sounds like poor management of deliver of bad news since no news is ever delivered by an officer in such a manner that wasn't acutally a PSA.

you can also see that the program has been running since 2001.

I'd like to also add that nowhere does this program associate themselves with MADD. It also does not state MADD in the article in the OP.

There is probably enough data to see if there are some effectiveness of the program.

I can understand the cruelty factor when the students realized
they had been 'duped'..basically lied to.
I can see how that could erode trust in adults and especially
those in law enforcement.

I do not know the statistics of how effective these mock scenes are either.

There have been programs in large cities where gang violence is so
pervasive, they take very young children already somewhat
involved and aware of the gang scene, to the morgue.

Seeing the bullet ridden bodies as the coroner pulls back the sheet,
takes quite a bit of the romance and coolness out of the world that
they imagine it to be.

It ain't no video game.

The cost of these programs would be well worth it.
So tragic, those in power for the last 8 years have been...well..in power.
But I digress....sorry.

So, do you think that you would have been in a drunk-driving accident if you hadn't seen the paraplegics?

If they are empirically demonstrated to work better than other educational programs, then they may be worth it. Otherwise, you're just showing kids bullet-ridden bodies. Fear appeals may be shocking, but they're not necessarily effective at changing behavior.

The OP article does suggest an association:
EDIT: Thanks for providing the links to the program website. It seems a lot less deceptive than the OP article suggests. I'm looking around for investigations of the effectiveness of the program.

How can we measure the effectiveness of any of these programs,
when we take into account their sporadic nature?

It boggles my small brain.

I can only speak from anecdotal experience.

It was very effective in my case.

Well, we could give students surveys of their attitudes regarding or experience with drunk driving some time after the program and compare those responses to the responses of students from schools that do not receive the program (or use other educational methods). That would be cheaper than tracking student drinking & driving behavior longitudinally.

That's not the question, really; it's "would you have driven drunk if you hadn't seen the paraplegics?"

Yes, I should have been more clear. Thanks.

I see the logic of that,
yet how do we factor the fact we are dealing with youngsters
who sometimes like to fill out forms full of questions in a flippant
manner like youngsters sometimes do?

A strange peer reviewed study full of peer pressure.
(I really don't mean to be sarcastic..I'm just brainstorming here.)

as some one who has lost a loved one to a drunk driver, I am of two minds on this. any thing to keep some dumb fuck from getting behind the wheel when drunk is good. However, having lost many people I care about, something like that is fucked up beyound all means. If you have ever had to go through the shock and pain of sudden lose, then you know just how much it it scars you. To do that to a bunch of kids is just wrong. One more abuse of the system, all "for the children" I said it before, I'll say it again. Fuck he children.

In a related story, four teens were gunned down in front of their classmates to show the dangers of guns. It was later revealed that they were just acting.

Also, an an attempt to reduce teen pregnancies, several young women who had taken school physicals were told they were pregnant. 9 months later, the school admitted it was not true. Everyone laughed at them.

Finally, several teachers were brutally raped in front of their students at a local middle school. Afterwards the rapist took off his mask to reveal McGruff the Crime Dog, who warned that rape was bad.

MADD long left the field of trying to prevent drunk driving and has been essentially a temperance cause for quite some time. This is a pretty twisted manipulation, well beyond the means necessary to teach the message they're trying to get across. I would be perfectly ok with them showing the brutal accident scene, but somberly telling people that other people they know are dead is just cruel, and no good intention is going to relieve them of that.

Imagine if someone called you and told you a good friend or loved one had died and let you soak in that pain and sorrow until saying, "JUST KIDDING! Hope you learned something!" I'd be fucking pissed, and I think I'd have good reason to be. The fact that these are high school students and the fact that it's to try to prevent drunk driving doesn't change that.

Will is often prone to hyperbole, but I think his point is well made above.

I agree most definitely wholeheartedly on that point as well.

Yeah, I think this is wrong, too. I'm shocked that so many people here seem to like this idea. It's wrong to lie to people, even for their own good, and even if they're just teenagers, and therefore not real people. Think of all the other situations this could be (mis-) used in. Imagine a police officer came to your door and told you your husband, wife, or child had been killed in a drunk-driving accident. An hour or so later he comes back and says "Not really! Don't drink and drive!". Or your Doctor telling you you have terminal cancer. And hour later, he calls you at home and says "Not really! I just wanted to encourage you to get screened more often!"

Also, this is inherently self-limiting. As it gets more popular, the chances that the kids in the class will have heard of it, and not be fooled.

Imagine the kids being told that a classmate had died in a drunk driving incident, and them not believing it because of this.

Have any actual psychologists signed off on this?

Not sure about this one, personally i would feel faded towards madd/teachers/police/society in general for faking such a horrific event. There has to be equally effective ways to stop kids or anyone for that matter from drinking and driving.

In my school we had the car demonstration and lectures from people injured in drunk driving accidents. I thought they were pretty effective, but did not stop me once from doing this deadly retarded practice.

I would like to add that i grew up with drinking and driving as the norm unfortunately. I remember mixing drinks, yes mixing drinks for my dad while he drove when i was younger. Lovely stuff....once i hit the age 13 i drove when my dad had to much to drink.

Personally I have only drove once while drunk and was luckily enough not to kill anyone or do any damage. I was around 22 years old and out with my then girlfriend and some buddies. So drunk that i did not even remember driving home. Worst feeling ever in the morning of what could have happened. Now i will not even get in a car with someone who has had 1 drink let alone drive myself after drinking.

From an anthropological perspective,
could these type of tactics be considered almost excepted,
given the fact that I grew up with 'Candid Camera'?

The last few times I did watch television, I saw myriad programs,
containing practical? jokes that I considered cruel and offensive.

Cruel, nasty vicarious violence has been the mainstay of entertainment
in this country for decades, and it seems as though it needs to escalate
to keep peoples attention.

Think of all the programs on T.V. alone....where this type of behavior...
is considered funny...

yuck...me go be quiet now..and take a bath.

when i was young, we were all bullet-proof...

we lost a few...

sobered some of us up for a while...

schools are doing this triage thing before prom nights...here and in florida...

love it...

told the principal down in florida where i sub that it was one of the better things that i've seen lately...

he said "thank you" and that he'd do it again...

This is the kind of mind numbingly stupid behavior that makes me want to do violence upon my fellow man. I can honestly say, that given the way I was back in high school, people would have had to sit on me to keep me from assaulting whatever faculty was involved in this.

Can you post a link or source to this? I have not heard of this happening at all. Where did this happen?

Honestly, I'd be pissed.

With that kind of logic the students should take over the school with guns, and kidnap the principal threatening execution.

Just before SWAT took down the place, they jump out and say SURPRISE! We're showing how bad terrorism is! And then open a can of coke with the SWAT, jumping that dumb sideways jump with their hands in the air smiling while the SWAT guys smile and nod approvingly.

I'm naturally disinclined to pay much attention to MADD, since somewhere along the way (probably when the "DD" went from "Drunk Driving" to "Destructive Decisions") it seems like the organization was taken over by Sheila Broflovski.

But since there seem to be conflicting reports about how this thing works, I'm withholding judgment. If I was a student, I would probably find the version in the original post angering, and the one on the other site just annoying and not worth paying attention to.

Of course, I also never EVER drink enough to have this be an issue and am smart enough to understand the consequences of such an action (at least I believe I am), so that is where my opinion is coming from.

I'm sure if I was a parent my view would be at least somewhat different (though likely not all the way to actually supporting any of this).

Oh my. I know exactly how this would play out in my fucked up high school (Haines City high.)
The "play" would be about 10 min. into its run before students started falling asleep, hurling random shit at the stage, and just plain fucking off.

after the scenario, kids would show up to school for the rest of the school year drunker or higher than they usually were in some sort of fucked up protest. Any "hippy" who tryed to defend the thing would be totally ignored or ran off of the campus.

-sigh- my high school was morally fucked, but everyone seemed to get along.

personally, i think that its bullshit. darwin usually falls into play with dumb-asses, unfortunately in DUI cases the drunkard usually is the one who walks away fine.

do i believe you should drink and drive? no.
Does everyone know how horrible it is to do so? i would love to believe so.
Was this the right way to go about things? no, i dont believe so.

what happened to the police coming into class rooms and showing kids photos of DUI wreckage? that always seemed to work on even the most stubborn of kids.

The fourth paragraph down in the article in the OP MADD is mentioned:

I think it's wrong to lie to people about someone's death...especially if it's someone who they cared about. I do think that some people are too sensitive to be put in this situation and it can be traumatic. I'm not in favour of it.

I think the second part, the re-enactment, or the talk that ratbastid mentions with victims of drunk-driving, is not a bad idea.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what happens to you or what you're told - it's how you deal with things and your decision process, based on your character, that will determine an outcome.

Those jerks would've driven me to drink.

They couldn't just find a real victim of drunk driving? Obviously, drunk driving must be an epidemic for that school.

We did this at my high school, but instead of faking deaths, I dressed as the Grim Reaper and pulled a student out of class every hour and a half (which is closer to the actual frequency of deaths caused by drinking and driving,) who returned a few minutes later with their face painted white. They read facts about drunk driving accidents between classes. I doubt it had any effect on anyone.


MADD may have started out with good intentions, but it is nothing more than a group of moralists who try to force their neo-prohibitionist agenda on everyone. They're the ones who help set up counseling for those who abuse alcohol and try to brand anyone who has ever had more than a sip of communion wine as an alcoholic and force them into their rehab programs. They're the reason that drunk driving statistics are so terrifying because it's recorded as an alcohol-related accident if the driver blows even a .01, if anyone in the car had anything to drink, if a sober driver hits a pedestrian who had been drinking, or if anyone tests positive for any drug; one top of that the statistic arbitrarily adds something like 10 or 15 percent to account for drunk drivers who aren't caught.

MADD do little good, they masquerade as saviors of kids while they advance their extremist agenda unchallenged.

There are a lot of things where I can abide white lies, but the death of someone you care for is not one of those things. I'd cease communication with any 'friend' or acquaintance who thought they could fool me in such a way.

Unfortunately for these children, they have no way of ceasing communication with the faculty of their school. Though I don't think a "mental anguish" type of suit would hold any type of merit, this is a very unethical thing to do, if not
illegal.

Even if it does 'teach' children not to drink and drive, it also secondarily teaches them that it's OK to lie when you're trying to prove a point.

Well, in the abstract this could be a case for intentional infliction of emotional distress if any of the kids could show some sort of actual trauma beyond merely "I was upset before they told me." The catch is that the jury would have to think that the conduct was outrageous and reckless with regards to the feelings of those involved. Given the link to trying to teach kids about drunk driving, I think you'd have a hard time seating a jury who would see it that way.

I beleive (yes, with the school year over I can now be more than a lurker!) that MADD is one of the most corrupted organizations in existance... not evil, just completely different than what they started out as.

This is nothing more than a shock scheme determined to scare kids into not being retarded.

I agree with this. There are way too many things and people in this world that tell people that if you make any kind of mistake 'It's okay.' and 'Don't do it again.' (I'm from Minnesota, one of the most liberal states in the nation - I saw this al the time while in school) This rhetoric leads people, especially children, into thinking that they can do anything and the consequences won't be all that dire.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. After being exposed to small punishments, slaps on the wrist, and Don't-do-it-agains for their entire 7 years of Middle and High school-itude, 14 of my graduating class of 360 are dead from drug overdoses, drunk driving, and suicides... (frequency in that order with 2 suicides) I remember one person who just died a few months ago... I knew him since second grade and he was a loser the entire time. He was arrested for possesion about 5 times through high school and once for MIC. Turns out he died of a drug overdose. In his friends written eulogy, under their favorite activities together, was 'poking smot'.

Maybe if someone bothered to shock him he wouldn't have been all that worthless.

To further my digression, my future roommate was t-boned going through an intersection in Kansas City last week. She was hit by a 17 year old high schooler who was drunk and stoned, and didn't notice the light was red. Turns out that person had a sober passenger in the car. If they had been shocked by a school, maybe Sophia wouldn't need to pay her hospital bills or her extra insurance.

So back to my main point. I approve this system. I'd rather have 100,000 high school kids get minorly scarred in one afternoon and learn it was a hoax than have one of them on the road threatening my, or my girlfriends, or my family's lives.

Fuck their 'mental anguish', at least they're still alive to bitch about it.

*edit, t-boned, not tboned

i agree...

I was a high school kid only 6 years ago. The program didn't scar me or teach me anything other than the value of helping out those in charge to avoid other duties. The only real trauma and mental scarring from that year was my friend who lapsed into an episode of depressive psychosis and hung himself. That also scratched off the yearly tradition of having a fake accident and hearse in the courtyard right before prom.

A few people who were involved in "whit-out" day got the point; at that time we were mostly straight edge kids (yes, I was sXe before it was cool) who agreed with the anti-drinking message. The rest of the school just screamed "feaks!" at me (the reaper) and the "victims" who painted their faces white and ignored us.

Again, we don't have evidence that the program even works better than other programs. From what I recall from studies I have read, fear appeals may shock, but they don't necessarily change behavior. Why waste the time/resources and deceive kids about the deaths of their friends if it doesn't help them?

More generally, I'm interested in whether or not a school should spend a lot of time focusing on topics like this. Seems like our school systems have enough trouble teaching students, why reduce the amount of time devoted to classes? Should we include similar "fear appeal" programs for other social issues (e.g. obesity, safe sex, racism, sexism, homophobia...)?

"Whoa, that was one SHOCKING lie. We'd better believe what they say!"

They did something similar to this back when I was in high school, except the 'dead' had their faces painted in white and we weren't allowed to acknowledge their presence. I guess the white face paint was to indicate they were ghosts, but it didn't have the same effect.

But having the cops come in and tell the kids their classmate was dead? Priceless. And more effective than the chick that had her face burned off a drunk driver slammed into her car on her prom night making it burst into flames and killing her boyfriend. All that did was give people nightmares and made them feel sorry for her. I give this one an A+.

I'm pretty sure two or three years from now when they're binge drinking one of them will say, "dude, remember that time the cops came into the classroom and told us you were like, dead?"

MADD Hoax
 

After loosing my 18 year old son to a repeat offender drunk driver and loosing two more of his classmates with six months of each other due to alcohol related accidents I don't think anything is too much to get the attention of our children. We all know as teens and even adults things like that don't happen to us they happen to other people but if it makes them realize it can happen to them then maybe they will think twice before being so careless with their lives and the lives of others. They will get over this hoax a lot quicker than their family could ever get over loosing them. Sometimes we have to use the SHOCK factor to get their attention. I strongly recommend this for all high schools! Thanks MADD for all you do!

I am pro stronger drinking and driving penalties (financial and criminal) and enforcement. I am pro-MADD for most things they do. But the emotional damage from this hoax is to me crossing a line. Staging for them an accident, good, showing the damage good, showing them pictures of other students who have died (with permission from their family) is ok, but lying about a classmates death is a line that is to me to much.

Man, people LOVE to overreact. Everybody's safe and sound...jeez.

I wish I could rent Red Pavement or Blood On The Highway, with MST3K treatment.

Sure, but next time there's a chance that the students will remember how they felt when they found out that their classmates were killed in drunk accidents and think twice before drinking and driving or not allow their drunk friends to drive.

True, but a parent should still teach their child, the teacher should still teach the child, some lines should not be crossed. What about if a child was in the auditorium whose parent was killed by a drunk driver, or an uncle, or someone else. What about their rights for the potential emotional damage. If a parent felt it was ok for their child to be hoaxed I can not fully agree with it but then at least there is someone who knows their child intimately who says it is ok, but for a school to just do it to everyone not taking in every child case by case basis sorry it is wrong.

As I said showing the damage explaining the damage, talking about kids killed I can understand, but to put that emotional (psychological) stress to a whole school like that is just wrong.

A parent can teach a child that the stove is hot until they're blue in the face. Only after the child burns himself does he understand that it is in fact hot.

Sure, older/adult persons have a better understand of warning, but actual experience really stays with you. Much more than anything you've been taught by parents or teachers.

I think what MADD did was sick. I don't care what you're trying to educate kids about, you don't make them believe their friend is dead, and then go, "Psych! Just kidding! Don't drink and drive!" That is just cruel and abhorrent.

I teach high school, I know how resistant kids can be at that age. I agree that sometimes you have to go the extra mile to shock their complacency.

Having an assembly where they get to meet kids paralyzed and otherwise crippled by drunk driving? A good idea.
Displaying the wreck of a car driven drunk and crashed? A good idea.
Showing them gory pictures or movies of drunk driving crashes? A good idea.

Emotionally abusive psychological manipulation? Really unacceptable.

All of the above can be filed under "this will not happen to me" category. Actually experiencing the emotion tied with the result of drunk driving is a much more powerful tool.

Agreed.

I didn't have anyone in our school involved in drunk driving fatalities during my tenure there.

• Having a neighbor hit by a drunk driver which made her have major hospitalization and recovery.
  
• Having a friend decapitated and 3 others killed in Malaysia as they were drinking and driving around the Malay penninsula on winter break.

These real events were more shocking than anything else I had been told or read about. The other things, are much more "It won't happen to me."

While you may think it may help 98% of the kids what about the other kids that it may psychologically harm. I feel there are other methods of educating children and some lines that are just wrong.

And Cynthetiq while you and I agree krav maga is the right way to learn how to defend yourself, where you actually go through being choked to learn how to defend yourself it may not be the right way for everyone to learn. Here there is perhaps real psychological damage not being choked in a controlled environment.

Throughout my 4 year high school career, I have been through 4 annual Drinking and Driving awareness assemblies complete with lots of fake blood, pictures of smashed cars and speeches from people who knew people who got into an accident. Have they had any effect on me? None. In fact, I found them amusing. It just doesn't work for the most part.

Know what hit home? When my friend opened up the day with a speech over PA system saying goodbye to four of her close friends (my acquaintances) who have died over the weekend (it was Monday morning) in a car crash. Drunken car crash where the driver deemed it to be a good idea to take an off ramp at 120 miles per hour. No survivors.

It isn't. I never claimed it was. If it helps more of the 98% I'm all for it. If the 2% have emotional difficulties from such a thing, there are IMO deeper underlying issues that broke the surface and would have surfaced in the future.

I'd rather worry about the more than the one. I'm a believer in the needs of the many outweigh those of the few. If worrying about the emotional distress of 2% and you still lose more of the 98%, well, then IMO the thinking is flawed. Someone is allowed to die because of concern about someone's emotional state?

Now there still has been no studies to show the effectiveness of this program, or even the emotional impact.

Cynthetiq by the way Doc, she agrees with me, so that can be a topic over a bbq (or movie night if you can fit one in)

duh of course she's going to agree, she needs the booking ;)

Maybe. But I can think of no quicker way, as a teacher, to lose a kid's trust forever than to spring a hideously painful and manipulative lie on them under the guise of education. I can think of few things that are more likely to harden a kid's attitude of mistrust and dislike toward authority, or their belief that adults are deceptive and out of touch with how kids think and feel.

What happens to the kid whose best friend, boyfriend, study buddy, or crush is declared dead in front of everyone? Are we really supposed to say, "Gee, I'm sorry you had the most traumatic morning of your young life, but we're kind of hoping that hearing about the death of some kid he used to steal lunch money from will maybe make the football halfback who likes to pound 40s of Mickey's on the weekends think twice before getting into his Mustang?"

I don't care if maybe it works better for a couple of kids than hearing the same message from everyone they love and zillions of signs around them. It is cruel, it is manipulative, and it is emotionally abusive. I would never participate in such a thing as a teacher, and if my kid's school did that to them, I would sue them.

I would imagine it being far better to make clear as a parent that regardless of the situation. You support them and do not wish for them to get in the car with a drunk or drive themselves. Whatever happened in the night happened, but at least I know you are coming home safe. I would far rather be woke in the night to bring my drunken teen home than to have an officer wake me up telling my child was killed.

When I was in high school, most of these attempts to shock us were laughable. The one instance that really did hit home was when a drunk driver hit a classmate just a little over a month before the end of school. He survived but it was definitely an eye-opener. Truth be told I think most teens fear angry parents more than death. After all, it could never happen to me...

Spoken like a true American.

Only because in America, we get tossed in the clink for smacking the principal upside the head.

Why would you feel the need to smack the principal upside the head in the first place?

The principal in levite's example is a mischievous student, not the head of school, if I am not mistaken.

And yes, levite, I don't agree with that either. It falls under the whole "suing for any stupid reason" category that I add new things to daily.

We did something similar to this when I was in high school, but we knew about it beforehand. There was also a mock crash every year, complete with the life squad arriving "on the scene."

This however... well, I can't say I'm a fan. Whether or not it's effective, I think the end result for me would have been just be getting pissed off and no longer trusting my teachers.

No, I actually meant the head of the school. Who should be smacked upside the head for permitting the manipulation and emotional abuse of the students, and not dismissing this stupid "hoax" as irresponsible and rephrehensible when it was proposed in the first place.

And I wouldn't sue for money. I would sue to get an injunction to stop the school from ever doing that again, and to get an apology for the cruelty with which the students were treated.

If it makes the dangers of drink driving more of a reality to anyone who gets behind a wheel then I am all for it.
Seems that any advertising campaigns, no matter how brutal are just not working here and people still take that chance.

Lives should never be put at risk due to people's own stupidity.

Wow, so scaring a few kids each year is worse than the possibility of losing the occasional kid. Glad everyone has their priorities straight. This is a good idea. My cousin was killed many years ago by a drunk driver. Hit from behind while walking down the road and apparently thrown 20 feet. He wasn't a good kid, and probably would have spent a fair amount of time in jail later in life, but he at least deserved a shot.

And I guess it's ok to show kids car wrecks and hospital and accident pictures of real accidents because it "did not happen to anyone you know". Maybe the old ways aren't working well and we need to try something new.

I don't mean to devalue anyone's experience, or suggest that lives aren't worth saving. But I do think that "trying to save lives" is not a cover-all excuse for any kind of behavior. Of course we should try to educate kids about drunk driving, and of course we should do our best to save lives. But how we live, how we treat people, is, in my opinion, often as important as preserving life.

I refuse to believe that there is no better way we can come up with to impress upon kids the importance of the lesson "don't drink and drive" than this cruel and manipulative little exercise.

This is not a question of trying to shield kids from personal experience. It's a question of being honest with them, especially in situations where the deception in question is particularly heartless.

The argument that we should emotionally abuse a lot of kids in order to potentially save the lives of a few is a classic "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" argument. And that argument is a fallacy: we can't always break situations down to "the many" and "the few." Quite often, we have to remember that "the many" and "the few" are abstractions. Individuals are not abstractions: they are actual personalities, actual beings, with feelings of their own.

This is nothing more than an ethics question. I'm all for it. You're not. Agree to disagree.

Why stop here, start showing everyone clips of people dying from aids, or heck pretend someone has it to teach safe sex. Have another student get lung cancer from smoking...

Again this is emotional psychological abuse, and the gain is not worth the cost.

Again. "Won't happen to me".

In other words - useless.

every time I hear of one of these staged trauma deals, I think of the boy who cried wolf.

bad idea in my book

I think it's a horrible idea as well. I can't imagine going along with this hoax. Very sick.

So they can't spank my kids, but they can traumatize them. Great. Just great. If my friend had been one of the 'dead' participants in the OP's version (where the kids actually believed their friend was dead), my first reaction upon seeing them again would not be to hug them, but to deck them. Friends don't let friends think they've died drunk. If you're all for it, fine. But either get my written permission to traumatize my child, or tell me when this stunt is going to be pulled so that I can keep mine home from school that day.

Quick side note.

I now believe in Forum-Jesus.

Only he could cause a thread ressurection like this.

/sidenote