DE Final: Crash Site

Mickey Rentas Jr. Type 3

FCA's:
1. give a complete summary of the four sites you visit in the cd( lawyer, police, doctor, school),
2.Tell who you turned out to be in the cd,
3.Give your view on the problems related to drinking/drugs and driving.

On the computer program “Crash Site” I came out being the passenger in the car. This really confused me because in the program it said that I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt even though when they asked me I said that I always wear my seatbelt.
The first person I gathered information from was the doctor. The three main things that we talked about were the effects of marijuana and alcohol on the brain, and damages done in car crashes. For the marijuana topic he broke it down into three areas of the brain that are effected. In all, marijuana affects your perception, and makes you misjudge braking and speed, but it also affects your limbic, cerebellum, and hippocampus. The limbic controls emotions. The drug leads to you miss danger signals because danger is something that your emotions deal with. The cerebellum takes care of your balance and posture. The drug makes you have poor coordination and poor road-tracking. The hippocampus deals with memory. Marijuana gives you memory loss and reduced attention and reaction.
For the damages part I learned that the brain has a consistency of jell-o. We also talked about the effects of the crash lasting for lifetimes with damaged senses and lost abilities. Other effects are that you can’t concentrate, forget things, loss of smell or taste and difficulty with motor skills. I also learned that there are three types of collisions in a crash: Your car hitting an object, your body hitting the car, and your brain hitting your skull.
As for the alcohol effects we talked about how that alcohol slows down messages to the brain, slurs your speech, blurs your vision and give you poor judgement. This topic was also broken down into three parts of the brain that are affected. The frontal lobe deals with decisions and alcohol makes you make bad decisions. The hippocampus as already stated deals with memory. Alcohol affects this area by giving you memory blackouts. The medulla takes care of your basic life functions like breathing, etc. When alcohol affects this part of the brain it can lead to brain damage and death.
Some other facts I learned are that beginning drivers have the highest crash rate and that there’s a 50% increase in this rate with just 1 or 2 drinks. I also learned that wearing a seat belt reduces your chances of dying by 60%.
The second place I went to was the police area. There I learned the signs and percentages of recognizing impaired drivers. Below are the signs and percentages that they are an impaired driver.

Slow response to traffic signals-40%
following to close- 50%
headlights off- 30%
weaving-60%
turning abruptly-35%
making wide turns-65%
drifting-45%
swerving-55%

Then we talked about the steps of being pulled over and what follows. The steps are: 1.Being pulled over-most commonly for speeding, weaving, expired plates, cracked window, and forgotten signal
2. Field sobriety test- drivers license and proof of insurance.
3. Miranda rights- getting arrested, handcuffed, getting taken to the station.

4. Breathalyzer- breath, urine or blood tests.

5. Pay bail- after booking post bail-released on own recognizance.

6. Arraignment- court date, your plea

7. Trial- bench trial and sentencing

The third place I went to was the lawyer. There we talked about the true meaning of the word TOTALED. It really means that the cost to repair a car cost’s more than the car’s value.
Then I got a ballpark cost of certain aspects of being charged with drunken driving for the first time.

Car tow fee-$50
Car storage per day-$137
Restricted license fee-$100
Insurance costs-$10,800
Alcohol education program-$585
Minimum fine-$480
Defense attorney fee-$2000
Court costs-$406
Probation fee-$44
Fund for head injuries-$120

Grand total_-_-_-_-_-_-$14,722

The last place I went to was the school. There I was informed that a lot of people feel more independent with a license. Another thing that was discussed was that a crash lasts on e instant but the effect lasts lifetime in the (emotions, limps, scars). I was also informed that for every teen killed on the road another 100 suffer non fatal injuries.
The other topic that we discussed was the tactics that can be used when confronting an impaired person that wants to drive home they are:

Direct-firm and works 50% of the time
Laid Back-stop defensiveness, easier to talk to them
Different Angle-allows the person to save face and they will be lass defensive
Take The Keys-direct and do it 1 on 1 to save embarrassment
delay-works best when the other person takes you seriously and they trust you.

Then it was discussed that there are people considered Sensation Seekers that are likely to take risks.
I feel as though teens and impaired driving is a big issue. There are to many wrongful deaths that could have been avoided. Then what happens is that people get into accidents and go to jail. If they sit there for a long time-it keeps coming out of our pockets.
These were all of the things that were discussed in the computer program “crash site”. Personally I feel like I learned a lot. I thought that the program was great at teaching the information to help teens understand the risks of impaired driving. The set-up of the program was fun and it’s interactivity kept me interested.