Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 7, 1990                   TAG: 9004070180
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ARLINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CAR SHOWS TEENS ROAD FROM SEAT OF DRUNK DRIVER

Students drove a sporty red 1990 Dodge Daytona whose braking and steering mechanisms are specially rigged to simulate the lethargic reaction time of an intoxicated driver.

In the parking lot behind the Bishop O'Connell High School in Arlington, scores of teen-agers braved nippy temperatures in the wind-whipped parking lot for a chance to test their mettle against car and computer. A 9-foot-wide, winding course had been marked out by bright orange cones, around which students were required to maneuver first with the car in its normal mode, then in simulated intoxication.

"This allows you to drive the car, which simulates some level of impairment, and get the experience from that, rather than making the dumb mistake of really drinking and driving," said Lou Herzog, East Coast regional director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which co-sponsored the event with Dodge.

Since Feb. 1, professional drivers Tim Danforth and Peter Taylor have zigzagged the country with the car, whose computer calculates the number of drinks needed to intoxicate drivers of varying weights.

"The program has really been effective," Danforth said. "Some of the students come in with a real macho attitude, and say, `Punch me in for six drinks.' But you see that they're really shaken when they get out of the car."

"It was like the steering gave out, it was like the brakes were soggy," David Lloyd, an 18-year old senior at Bishop O'Connell, said of his second run along the delineated path.

"I'll never drink and drive," Lloyd said. "I wouldn't want to risk my life."

Most of the students present Thursday had been driving only for a matter of months and all were under 21, the legal drinking age in Virginia.

But the problem of alcohol consumption among teens who drive has been growing steadily in Northern Virginia, according to Billy G. Johnson, state supervisor of driver education and traffic safety at the Virginia Department of Education in Richmond.

Johnson said that in 1988, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 3 percent of traffic injuries and 6 percent of traffic fatalities in the state were alcohol-related crashes involving teen-age drivers.

"When we did this years ago, we used to have adults actually get legally drunk," said Capt. Ron Miner of the Fairfax Police Department.

"The problem was, they wouldn't remember the experience afterward. These kids will remember it."

Carole Thomas, 17, an O'Connell student, took a personal message from the experience.

"I could hear all the little cones crunching under the tires," Thomas said. "At least they were little cones, and not little people."