High school students these days are quite creative with their “prom-posals,” the invitation to take a fellow student to the traditional end-of-the-year gala. Since the four area public high schools’ proms are all in April — Palm Beach Central’s was last Saturday; Seminole Ridge’s is on April 8; Royal Palm Beach’s is on April 22; and Wellington’s is on April 29 — it’s safe to say that the majority of such elaborate requests have already taken place.
The key word in that first paragraph is “safe,” which is what school officials, along with area law enforcement and safety personnel, hope will be the proactive word among teens attending the festive dance. This explains the annual incorporation of “Shattered Dreams,” a dramatization of the impact that drunk or distracted driving can bring into anyone’s life.
The Shattered Dreams program was begun some 20 years ago by St. Mary’s Medical Center in an effort to educate students about the need to be safe behind the wheel through a multimedia presentation that begins in a school’s auditorium or gymnasium, and ends in the football stadium. It includes video and live testimonials, as well as a dramatic enactment by students (usually on the school’s football field) as accident victims, in an attempt to increase awareness about the effects that texting, drug use or alcohol use, and other dangerous factors, can have while driving. The Trauma Hawk medical helicopter unit is usually part of the enactment.
Many schools in southeast Florida mandate that juniors and seniors who purchase tickets to their prom attend the powerful assembly, which usually takes place just a day or two in advance of the big event.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, distracted driving is any activity that diverts attention from driving, including talking or texting on your phone, eating and drinking, talking to people in your vehicle, fiddling with the sound, entertainment or navigation system — anything that takes your attention away from the task of safe driving. Distracted driving, whether from texting or driving under the influence, is one of the key reasons that teen drivers are four times more likely to be involved in a fatal automobile accident than adults, according to statistics from St. Mary’s.
Getting behind the wheel, no matter what your age, is a responsibility, and not being a responsible, attentive and sober driver puts you and others in grave danger. Now, we can’t say what students will or will not do on prom night. Most, we are sure, will be responsible and law-abiding. But we also cannot say what non-students will or will not do while behind the wheel. What we can do is urge everyone to be safe on the roads, regardless of age, gender or destination. Some 2,500 accidents involving teen drivers happen in Palm Beach County each year, and not all are the fault of the teen driver.
It is up to all of us to make our dangerous roadways safer.
