HILLSDALE, N.J.—It happened right before their eyes. And it was a terrible scene.
Local emergency response agencies and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Fatal Accident Investigation teamed up with students and the Pascack Valley Regional High School District to conduct a motor vehicle crash re-enactment June 14 on the campus of Pascack Valley Regional High School in Montvale.
The purpose of the event—complete with young actors made up as gory, sprawling, and broken bodies following a head-on collision of a truck and sedan—was to reinforce the dangers of drinking and driving, and texting while driving, especially during prom and commencement season.
Speakers touched on the opioid crisis, citing the rise in heroin and fentanyl use and noting that New Jersey has hit a record high in such arrests for the fourth straight year.
Turning out: the Hillsdale Police Department, Hackensack University Medical Center, the Hillsdale Ambulance Corps, and the fire departments of Hillsdale and River Vale.
Graduation at Pascack Hills and Pascack Valley was June 18. At Westwood Regional High School and Emerson High School graduation was June 20. Park Ridge High School’s graduation is June 25.
In the Garden State, a person is guilty of drunk driving if he or she operates a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08% or greater. BAC refers to the amount of alcohol in your blood.
You can be convicted of driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor even when your BAC is below 0.08%.
Consuming even small amounts of alcohol dulls the senses, decreases reaction time, and hampers judgement, vision and alertness. If you consume any amount of alcohol and your driving is negatively impacted, you can be convicted of drunk driving.
State underage drinking laws carry a 30- to 90-day license suspension in addition to 15 to 30 days of community service.
To get an underage DUI charge, the driver’s BAC level needs only to be 0.01% based on the Alcotest machine (New Jersey’s breathalyzer).
At the simulation, speakers said drivers 16–19 are nearly three times more likely than drivers 20 and older to be in a fatal crash. Teen deaths in car crashes are related to alcohol 60% of the time.
They said newly licensed teens have the highest risk of car accidents, teens have the lowest rate of seat belt use, and they are 400% more likely than adults to have a distracted driving crash.
A parent or guardian who is convicted of driving while intoxicated and had a passenger in the motor vehicle 17 or younger is also guilty of a disorderly persons offense.
In addition, a person forfeits the right to operate a motor vehicle for a maximum of six months and must perform community service for up to five days.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say there are more than 300,000 incidents of DUI each day and that alcohol-related traffic collisions and distractions are a major social, health, and economic problem.
Driving and texting is a growing concern, where drivers under 20—avid text message users—comprise nearly a third of the drivers in fatal crashes attributed to distracted driving. Students at the event said they took the message to heart.
— Story by John Snyder with photos courtesy Digital Vision Photography
