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First Posted: 2/23/2015

DALLAS TWP. — With the help of Wyoming Valley Alcohol and Drug Services and the Lehigh Valley Health Network, 450 Dallas High School junior and senior students, as well as this reporter, were put to the test to see if we could handle the simplest of tasks while under the influence of alcohol.

During a Driver Safety presentation at the high school, I sat in the driving simulator. Settings allow you to simulate either driving a vehicle while intoxicated or while being distracting with texting on a cell phone.

I chose the texting and, at 23 years of age, figured “I got this,” until I talked to 16-year-old Cienna Brumagin.

“It was pretty hard,” the junior student told me prior to my giving it a try. “I had to pay attention to my surroundings, use the turn signals, use the brake and the gas and I had to pay attention to all the distractions.”

Still, I thought, no big deal. I’ve got this.

I did not have this.

Controlling the car was hard. I kept swerving, the gas pedal was sensitive, meaning the lightest of pressure and I was flying, and the brakes, well, the brakes were not good.

I hit a dog, crashed into another car and swerved into oncoming traffic all while trying to text. This virtual experience ensured that I will never attempt to text while driving.

Next, I had to walk in a straight line. No big deal. Then came the drunk goggles which show what your vision looks like when under the influence: blurry and spinning.

I felt like I was walking on a tight rope at that point as I kept losing my balance and nearly fell over. For as dangerous as drinking and driving can be, drinking and walking can be equally dangerous.

Then came the putting of golf balls. I putted the ball into the hole no problem. Then came the goggles. Putting the ball wasn’t the hard part. Picking up the golf club from the ground was. These goggles made me see double so, even though I thought the club was to my left, it was actually to my right.

If you can’t pick up a golf club while intoxicated, how could you drive a car?

Then came the challenging of pinning a fake mustache on a painting of Dallas High School Assistant Principal Jason Rushmer. I put the mustache right on his lip.

Next, things got interesting. While wearing the goggles, I had to pedal a child’s tricycle around a bunch of cones. This was probably the most challenging. Not only was staying on the tricycle hard, but the goggles made the cones look closer to me than they actually were. What a sight I must have been.

Multiple times I nearly fell off the tricycle, but I didn’t feel as bad when I heard that senior student Christina Yanuzzi actually did fall off.

“It was hard,” said the 18-year-old. “I thought it was going to be easy, but it was really, really hard to do. The bike was the hardest.”

Driving the scooter was last on my list and it wasn’t much easier than anything I had already done. I then did the exact same thing I did with the tricycle, hitting a cone at the end.

“Aahh!” I shouted to the heavens. “I almost made it!”

Feedback from students throughout the experience was positive as they learned how vision and motor skills are impaired with alcohol.

Dallas High School Resource Officer Gina Kotowski of the Dallas Township Police Department told me the importance of the hands-on experiments for the students is to let them learn while having fun.