Born and raised in Alberta, I've never heard of or seen this
this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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At mine, on that day, they started it by announcing over the intercom one morning that a popular classmate had been killed by a drunk driver on the way into school. Even though it should have been obvious that's not how it would really have been handled, it got the shock it was intended to get. A few people even ran out of classrooms crying. That was before everyone had cell phones.
I guess they wanted to make a point about the fatality rate statistic, too, though, so they kept going, announcing another person every however many minutes. It immediately became really obvious to everyone what was going on when they announced the second person. I think it lost more of its desired effect the more they continued.
In my school, one student was pronounced dead at the scene, one was taken by ambulance, and another was airlifted.
Every day, we would hear a car crash and heartbeat come up on the announcement system and then a grim reaper would walk into a classroom and tap a student on the should who "died" from drunk driving. They were taken to another room, where they put on makeup and a tombstone was placed for them in front of the school. At the end of the day, all the "dead" students would stand behind their tombstone. The "dead" would still attend class, but say nothing.
At the end of the week, there was a big presentation, where some people who survived a drunk driving accident spoke about their experience and statistics. He had suffered third-degree burns across his body and took off his shirt and walked around the auditorium, so that we could see the aftermath.
Fatal Choices was intense
We had to wear goggles that simulated being drunk like that one episode of the Simpsons and then try to do basic tasks like walk from one point to another or whatever so they could show how it impaired your motor skills. But it backfired because they just really exaggerate the visual impairment you get from drinking, they’re basically putting on a really too strong pair of glasses. But we did several rounds and eventually got somewhat used to it, it was a big game of who could seem the least impaired, the message was completely lost on us, etc
What
It is worth noting that this sort of thing was only done for a very brief period of time. It's not like this is how all American schools have warned students since 1978.
Still hilarious when you look back on it.
2004, we made my buddy laugh when he was supposed to be playing dead and got in trouble lol
Making friends laugh when they are supposed to be still/silent is like... Half the reason to have friends. All thebsrupid charades we used to do whenever someone was on the phone with their parents or girlfriend lol. Or the moaning and making ridiculous comments loudly lol.
I don't often remember highschool fondly but it happens once in awhile.
American, in the early 00s is when I got my license.
We never had that shit.
What we had was a school promoted driver's ed course. I think there was a video in the first week about drunk driving, but it was never this dramatic.
Then, we had road time. Lessons on the actual rules/laws of the road? Nah. Chuck a 15 year old into a car with a few other students, give the instructor a chicken brake, and figure it out. If you passed the school program, you didn't have to take a written or road test, you just got your license. Unless you had an accident, you passed.
I'll just say, that seems to explain a lot of the shitty drivers in my home town. Hell, my first time getting on the highway was coached by a friend of the same age as I did it for the first time. Didn't learn that in the drivers ed program, we just took side/back roads.
Also round-a-bouts didn't exist back then, in our area. They got real popular in the last couple years. No one seems to know how to use them. Yield? What the fuck does that mean?
My wife and I moved to another state a few months ago. I just gotta say driving was something I fucking loathed. In this new state? Well, I still don't like it, but honestly, its fine. So much better. People observe traffic signs/laws. It makes a big difference.
Also American. Got my license not that much longer after you (not being specific cause I don't like that) but, we had an ex cop as our driver's Ed instructor. He put up slideshows of uncensored accident photos he had personally taken. It was gruesome, and effective in encouraging safe driving imo. It's probably not the best way, but it seemed to work.
We had a day when they simulated a group of students being killed in a drunk driving accident. They still had to come to school, though, so they wore white face paint and weren't supposed to interact with anyone.
My school had this too. The fake crash was on the grass by the bus loop, and the theatre kids involved went to class with ghost facepaint and didn't talk until school was dismissed. NGL it stuck with me, but I was already afraid of alcohol and drugs because of DARE* 🤷♂️
*Discredited program that only worked on me apparently.
They not only did this whole skit at my high school, they literally had a helicopter from the local hospital airlift the "injured" students off the football field where the assembly was held.
I was kinda jealous of my friend, who was one of the two kids who got to ride the chopper. I've never ridden in a chopper. 🥺
When I was in high school they tried to do that, but couldn't get something important for it and instead had a student give a play-by-play over the PA of a drunk accident. Nobody paid attention because it happened between classes.
I work for a funeral home. We do a mock car crash every other year before homecoming.
The fire department gets two messed up cars and sets them up like they crashed, gets some students to play different roles, one was a drunk driver, some are unconscious, one is dead, one gets taken by helicopter by careflight. It's fun to participate in. Our role is to pull the hearse up and take the "body" away. No funeral.
Where/when is this happening?
america… my high school in michigan had a fake crash set up with a fire truck there… they had a bunch of lights, banners and tables so it was obviously staged at first glance… so they weren’t tricking the kids… but they had body bags and stuff, i didn’t watch the show….
but also my friend died and a couple other friends were seriously injured in a pointless crash just driving fast for fun… i think kids don’t really understand the power of their 2 tons of steel and an engine that can go 150 mph… why are cars even able to go over 80?
In America they do that in between active shooter drills.
in between active shooters ~~drills~~.
Ftfy
Nah at my high school we just had kids die in drunk driving accidents every year, usually multiple. I'd say we didn't need a lot of theater around the topic, but well, then again...
It’s been 5 years and his friend is still pretending to be dead.
Note that even in Alberta we wrote "high school" the same as you'd write "primary school" or "secondary school", which suggests there was also spelling lessons.
Yes, but it wasn't fake. Three students died playing drunk motorcycle chicken, two guys and one of them had their girlfriend on the back. The whole school was in mourning and I got written up for pointing out that they were clearly fucking idiots.
No. We were shown why you don't use water in an oil fire. Was a fun practical demo.
My science teacher had a balloon and he lit the string saying “check this out”
The balloon was filled with hydrogen
I don’t think that would be okay to do today
We had a community science day when I was little where they did that. Hydrogen is pretty safe to ignite in a birthday balloon.
I loved it, I’ve never felt such an explosion pressure in my chest!
It's quite a pop!
They exploded some other balloons too, iirc, but I don't remember too well. I think I was 8.
I wanna get some hydrogen…
My partner would have a heart attack. They can’t even be around a gun shooting or firecrackers, much less that kinda boom! I wouldn’t do that to them.
For me it was less intense than a gun or firework, maybe your balloon was bigger lol.
You can get hydrogen by running electricity through water but I forget how it works.
Oh yeah his balloon was like a nitrous mafia-sized whip it balloon. It was huuuuge!
Also that’s fun! Take out the o… and a H
You get O2 and twice as much H2 iirc
I had this at my highschool too. They even flew in a helicopter to take the "dead" students away. They also had a mock funeral and the "dead" students didn't have to attend school for the rest of the week and I'm pretty sure that they weren't allowed to use social media or communicate with anyone at school either.
I think they only did that once every 4 years at the school I went to. They didn't do any funeral stuff, just the crash scene part.
One year they had a student laying on the ground near a car and a firefighter accidentally stepped on her(thought she was one of the dummies?) and broke some of her ribs.
Didn't do shit to stop drunk driving, nor did the victims of drunk drivers that had their lives changed in the accidents.
In the UK we didn't even get driving lessons.
Our parents paid for us to learn to drive.
I still can't believe American schools teach kids to drive, given their........ attitude to other things. It's just weird.
US here. At my high school, Driver’s Ed was in the curriculum. We were taught the various laws and got a manual to study from, but we never got behind the wheel. At the end of the course (which I believe was a quarter in length), we got to take the written test, and if we passed, we got our learning permit. That would allow you to drive with supervision (including driving lessons) until you became 17 and passed the driving test.
In regards to the original post, we never got that sort of stuff. Around homecoming and prom, there was a special police car parked near the school whose back half was painted to resemble a taxi, and had “Choose your ride” written on it.
Afaik you have to pay for driving lessons and licensing across the US. Yes maybe you can take classes at the high school, but it’s still paid.
So you pay for the lessons at school?
Or you can pay for lessons at home, and get free lessons at school?
(Sorry -- your comment was clear as to who does the paying).
You pay private driving schools to 1) rent a car and 2) for lessons. There are no lessons offered through normal school itself, save for some select places and maybe some colleges.
If there are some select public schools that teach students to drive, I certainly never have heard of it before. The private driving schools though, yeah, I definitely know those are real. Various insurance companies give discounts to minors with drivers licenses if they pass said school I believe.
It really depends on what state you live in. My school only offered summer driver's ed. Only knew one person who took it. I never had a class on how to drive. My parents taught me, I took a written test, a 2hr long seminar on driving safely, and a practical test.
Because car culture.
Yup. Caused minor PTSD in the actors and I was one of them. A bunch of students still drove drunk though...
We had an assembly about drunk driving that had a mock scene with a car on the football field.
Then a guy gave a speech about him killing two people while drunk driving and how badly it's affected his life. He made a joke about his school's football team beating ours in the championship that year which incited my friend to scream "MURDERER!" at the top of his tongues
We only had fire drills, where we had to casually follow our teacher outside, stand at the collection spot for ~10min, and then go back in and continue the lesson.
Besides the two times where the canteen burnt the lunch so bad the alarms went off, we once had a suspected bomb alarm during uni where we were told to stay away for a few days while investigations were on, the ones who didn't need any of the instruments anyway. Turns out it was some depressed tween who made joke on reddit or tumblr about wanting to bomb the place.
Good times.
So -- funny story.
At my mum's school (she taught at a different school than me and my siblings went to) they had regular fire drills. (We had them at our school as well).
But at my mum's school the fire brigade sometimes took one or two students, or a teacher, aside and kept them inside the school during the fire drill, to test whether or not registers were being taken properly.
The idea being that when the register was taken, and little Susie Jones or Mister Smith (the biology teacher) wasn't present, the responsible member of staff would alert the fire brigade and they would go back into the building to "search for the missing person"
However one year they decided to stop doing it, because apparently one of the firemen approached a third year girl (aged 13) and asked if she wouldn't mind going into a cupboard with him, and she KICKED HIM IN THE LEG and ran away screaming about this creepy man who was trying to get her to go into a cupboard.
She attracted quite a lot of attention -- most of the staff and almost all of the students -- and they eventually calmed her down and explained what was going on. She was a little embarrassed but also quite proud of kicking him so hard.
So yeah -- after that they stopped taking kids aside and kept it to taking staff aside because no one else wanted to get kicked.
Another funny story -- aside from the fire drills, we once had to evacuate an entire wing of the school because we were testing the energy released by various things (peanuts, paraffin, methylated spirits etc) by setting them on fire and seeing how long it took them to heat up some water to 100 degrees.
It was going fine, until we tried burning 25ml of paraffin, and someone set fire to the curtains in the lab. One moment there was a small pool of paraffin, next moment FIRE RAGING ON THE CURTAINS and the fire alarm ringing throughout the building.
That was quite entertaining.
(I haven't even told you the story about the science teacher who cracked the plexiglass screen. You know the big thick screen they put up in front of "dangerous" experiments to protect the students?
Well the chemistry teacher was doing an experiment with fire and gunpowder and I think he mismeasured the amount he put in, because there was a flame and an explosion and the screen that was supposed to absorb the explosion and protect the students........... not so much -- it cracked and split in two. It didn't shatter but it wasn't entirely useful after that and the class ended a lot earlier than we were expecting.
This never happened at my school. The school news channel did do a special on it after someone died from texting tho
We didn't have that but George Stroumboulopoulos came and told us not to do drugs
They did it at my school