TISD shows kids effects of DWI

By Martin Edwards

Staff Writer

       Tioga Independent School District is doing what it can to help prepare the next generation of drivers, hosting an impaired driving seminar at the high school Dec. 20.

       The event was spearheaded by Texas A&M’s AgriLife Extension Service’s Watch Ur Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) Awareness Program, which travels across the state to bring attention to the dangers of operating motor vehicles while under the influence.

       “A group of my students wanted to put together an impaired driving program, and we brought Texas A&M’s Watch Ur BAC program here,” Tioga FCCLA Adviser Christi Crowe said. “We did something similar several years ago, and I thought it was a good opportunity to bring them back, since this group of kids hasn’t had the chance to go through this program.”

       The function consisted of a short address from Watch Ur BAC Program Coordinator Edward Jimenez, followed by various stations set up around the Tioga High School gym designed to test the participants’ hand-eye coordination and balance while wearing goggles that simulated the effects of alcohol and drug use.

       Walking a straight line, maneuvering through an obstacle course of squeaky rubber chickens, and steering through traffic on an impaired driving simulator were a few of the activities students took part in to help them gain a better understanding of how it feels to be impaired.

       “Not all of these students are driving at the moment, but they’re going to get there, and the statistics say that 21- to 24-year-old drivers have the highest rate of tickets and arrests for driving under the influence, so our main goal is to educate them about the dangers of drinking and driving and drug use early because these are things that will affect them as they get older,” Jimenez said.

       Jimenez, whose family experienced its own personal tragedy because of an impaired driver, said the Watch Ur BAC program provided the perfect place to tell his story with the hope of preventing it from happening to someone else.

       “A drunk driver hit us, and I lost my youngest son and my neighbor’s son,” he said. “I share the story so people can see how the effects go beyond the moment of the crash. It reaches into our lives and into the lives of our families.”

       Members of Tioga’s FCCLA Chapter also shared their thoughts on the event and insight into the work it took to put it all together.

       “We put in a lot of work behind the scenes, communicating with different levels of the school’s administration,” FCCLA vice president of records Emma Cox said. “Bringing all of the kids together was our biggest struggle because there’s 250 that we had to fit into two hours of time, but it’s been a great opportunity to learn something important because most of us are driving now.”

       FCCLA vice president of community service James Culp said the seminar should help he and his fellow young drivers “learn what they shouldn’t do and plan for the future.”

       “It definitely made me feel a lot more aware about drunk driving because there’s a lot of things we may not know,” senior Garrett Edgar said. “Even in the field sobriety test, the goggles are only 0.6 [BAC], so it's not even simulating legally drunk, and you can see they're still struggling. It just shows you some of the stuff you can't do with any amount of alcohol in your system, so it's doing good to push awareness of how dangerous it is.”

       For more information regarding Watch Ur BAC or to schedule an event, follow the program’s page on Facebook or visit their page at watchurbac.tamu.edu.