“I was (and am) a pretty careful driver, but you can never drive too safely. “But as with all things, unless you can speak from experience, it’s hard to put into perspective the consequences of getting into an accident, especially to a teenager who otherwise thinks they know everything,” Gounardes said. When I was learning to drive as a teenager, I was always mindful of this bit of family history. Her daughter Vivian died in the accident. “In 1954, my grandmother was involved in a car accident with another car that left her hospitalized for several months.
Car accident simulation article simulator#
“The distracted driving simulator was especially interesting to me because my family has been affected by the consequences of unsafe driving,” Gounardes said. “When students take the wheel of the driving simulator and are then asked to perform various tasks using their cell phone, it soon becomes obvious that even the slightest distraction will impair your ability to safely maintain control of your vehicle,” Gentile saidīefore using the simulator, each student was asked to sign a pledge stating that they will drive responsibly and understand the dangers involved with distracted driving.Īndrew Gounardes, Democratic candidate for state Senate and a former aide to Gentile, suggested to the councilman that he ask Vavas to visit the school. Vavas came New Utrecht High School with his simulator at the request of Councilman Vincent Gentile. It’s another to see how easy it is to get into a serious accident,” she said. “It’s one thing to hear the statistics about text messaging and driving. New Utrecht Principal Maureen Goldfarb said she was amazed at the fake accidents. But it’s very dangerous because your reaction time is compromised,” Vavas told the students. You think you can send a text to someone with no problem. “You don’t realize how distracted you are when you’re driving.
But that student drove all over the road, including crossing the double yellow line back and forth several times. Only one student made it all the way to the destination. Nearly all of the teens wound up getting into accidents because they had trouble concentrating on the road due to all of the distractions. Students took turns getting behind the wheel and driving the girl home.
Car accident simulation article driver#
And when the line was busy, the passenger asked the driver to send her brother a text message. The voice requested that the driver call her brother on a cell phone. There was the voice of a teenage girl as the passenger who blurted out directions. The simulator, which looked like a computer screen, offered up several distractions to test the driver’s ability to pay attention to the road. James Vavas, an agent with Nationwide Insurance, brought the simulator to the school and had students get behind a fake wheel to test their driving skills on a simulated country road.
The students learned a lesson about the importance of paying attention behind the wheel. Still another hit a stop sign and lost control of the wheel. Another teen struck and killed a deer on a country road. On the simulator, one student driver collided, head-on, into another car. They took place on a simulator that had been set up in a classroom at the school at 1601 80th St. BENSONHURST - No one was injured in any of the car accidents that took place at New Utrecht High School on the morning of June 4.
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