Texts, ‘beer goggles,’ make for teen lessons in impaired driving at Mount Si | Photo gallery

Published 3:27 pm Tuesday, May 28, 2013

It’s not just about you.

That message, delivered as part of “Think and Drive” week at Mount Si High School was clear, even through the comedy of an impaired driver demonstration on the football field.

Students in the bleachers laughed as their classmates and a teacher tried to drive a golf cart through a cone-marked course on the field while texting on their phones or wearing vision-impairing goggles Thursday, May 16. They also couldn’t help noticing another group of students lined up on the field, and quietly sitting down, one for each cone the drivers hit during their trials.

“We’re the victims,” explained Payton Schmidt, number four in the lineup.

Before the event started, she expected she’d be sitting early and often, “because there’s a lot of cones and (they’re) going to be wearing drunk goggles.”

At the far end of the line, at about numbers 39 and 40, William Richards and Charles Dixon were more optimistic about their chances.

“We are good to go,” said Richards, and Dixon added, “I think there are actually more of us than cones!”

Seniors Hank VanLiew and Amanda Smith were selected to drive the course as part of the annual Think and Drive assembly presented by the Washington State Patrol, Snoqualmie Police Department and Mount Si High School Associated Student Body (ASB). Each of them drove the 45-second course once with no distractions, then receiving and responding to text messages, and finally, wearing “beer goggles” to simulate intoxication. Teacher Jean Jacques Tetu also drove.

There was little variation in their performances.

VanLiew got off to a rocky start on the texting run because he had extra distractions to start.

“Everybody’s texting me!” he said.

Smith drove confidently during the text run, making Trooper Julie Judson speculate “I think she’s done this before!”

Each driver crushed more cones with every pass, and surprisingly, each picked up speed on their last run, wearing the beer goggles.

“That’s because alcohol lowers your inhibitions,” explained announcer Courtney Popp, a traffic safety resource prosecutor with the Highway Patrol, and member of the national board of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “They think they’re doing better!”

They really weren’t.

The football players who volunteered for a relay race wearing the beer goggles, after the driving demonstration didn’t do very well, either. They definitely had the speed, but came up short on both accuracy of hand-offs, and staying vertical after they were done running.

Peyton McCulley, called down from the bleachers for a surprise appearance in the trials had a double handicap, wearing the strongest goggles, (simulating a .17 blood alcohol) and simultaneously texting.

It was all fun and funny, but the message was never missing: Don’t try this.

“This is game time,” explained ASB advisor Charlie Kinnune, “It’s all about being focused and trying to put on a good show.”

For the show-stopper, Rachel McNaul, a Mount Si graduate and now substitute teacher, spoke about her experience as a victim of a drunk-driving crash.

In December, 2010, McNaul was hit head-on by a drunk driver, both cars traveling at 70 miles per hour. Few people thought she’d survive the accident, let alone start her career as a physical education teacher — she’d just graduated from college.

“Two broken arms, two broken legs, I could do nothing,” she said. “I was just like a newborn baby.”

McNaul remembers waking up in the hospital. Her first question was “What happened?” Her second, “Was it my fault?”

Thankful that she doesn’t remember the accident, McNaul has also been able to see something positive in it. Everything happens for a reason, she says, and it could be that she, as a teacher, was meant to share her story with teenagers, like she did at Mount Si, and through a documentary that students made about her, available at (http://mshswildcattv.weebly.com/think-and-drive.html).

“I almost died,” she told the students. “It was really intense for my friends and family. You don’t want to put anyone through that, so make good choices.”

Carol Ladwig/Staff Photos

Amanda Smith laughs as she tries to negotiate a turn while responding to text messages on her phone.

Courtney Popp, a prosecutor who works with the State Patrol, explains how texting and driving is illegal and dangerous.

Rachel McNaul, victim of a drunk-driving crash three years ago, asks students to make good choices.

Highway patrolman J.P. McAuliffe cringes as Hank VanLiew crushes traffic cones while driving under the influence of vision-impairing goggles for a Think and Drive assembly at Mount Si High School.