TweetOn a Wednesday in late May, Palisades High juniors and seniors passed by the wreckage of a car that had been involved in a fatal car accident as they made their way to a mock memorial service. The service and car were both part of In One Instant, a program that strives to teach teens the tragic effects of driving too fast, texting, and drinking and driving.’ A coffin was brought into the gym escorted by a mock funeral possession of ‘collision victims, ‘ as Pali student Korinna Kaplanish sang ‘Amazing Grace.’ The day before, one junior or senior student from 40 different classrooms was selected to become one of the ‘victims”representing the statistic that every 15 minutes someone in the United States dies from an alcohol-related traffic accident. Those students attended an after-school program, and wrote a goodbye letter. Parents of those ‘victims’ also participated in the program and wrote a letter as if their teen had died. At the memorial, students watched an award-winning film made two years ago with PaliHi students that charted a DUI-related accident, the deaths as the result of the accident, the arrest, trial and eventual incarceration of an 18-year-old. After the video, the ‘dead’ students read letters about the bad split-second decision that cost them their lives. Then, parents shared their emotional thoughts about the possibility of losing their teen. A second video, focusing on texting while driving, and including ‘last texts’ of real collision victims, was also shown. Eric Bollens, who won a Pacific Palisades Community Council Sparkplug Award for his efforts to curb teen speeding (notably on Palisades Drive), spoke about racing. ’I’ve seen my friends get hurt. I’ve seen my friends lose their cars. I’ve seen my friends go to jail. And, on January 31, 2009 I lost a dear friend of mine, Nick Rosser. He wasn’t racing. He wasn’t drunk. He was just going too fast [up to his home in the Highlands]. ’Almost three and a half years later, I still wake up with a deep pain in my heart,’ said Bollens, who graduated from UCLA on Sunday. ‘Some wounds never heal. Things will never be normal again.’ He appealed to students to consider the consequences of their actions. ’This program is done out of love, care and concern for you,’ principal Dr. Pam Magee told students at the conclusion of the memorial. ‘We want you to know how valued you are. You have so much to offer. There is too much at risk from a split-second bad decision.’ After the program, students were required to complete a survey about changing driving behaviors; review their past texts to decide if any were important enough to risk a life; write a departing letter as if a friend had died due to their actions and finally, commit to a safe-driving pledge. The program grew out of teenager driving-related deaths in Pacific Palisades. Within the past six years, there have been six of these fatal accidents within eight miles of PaliHi. Three Palisades mothers, Gail Schenbaum Lawton, Cheryl Wada and Debbie Barnett, watched their teenage children attend funerals of friends who died in alcohol, distracted and reckless driving collisions. Their children were devastated, as was the Palisades community. In 2010, Lawton, Wada and Barnett worked to bring the Every 15 Minutes program to Pali. The program replicates a car accident, a death and an arrest of a student for DUI, and then incarceration. The program garnered high praise for its realism and the ability to convey the contrast of the happiness before the accident and then the grim realization of the loss of life in the aftermath. This California Highway Patrol-endorsed program costs about $47,000, which is prohibitive for most high schools (less than 12 percent have implemented it). In response, Lawton, Wada and Barnett founded Streetwise Media and In One Instant, a nonprofit, peer-driven experiential program that relies on an emotional transformation, much like Every 15 Minutes, but at a much lower cost. High schools with good AV systems can implement it for about $2,500. PaliHi, which is technologically challenged, had to rent equipment that upped the program’s cost to $7,000. According to the founders, In One Instant utilizes very little teacher time and is easy to implement, while helping to counter the lack of educational driving programs in California high schools. Does the program work? On a recent Saturday night, Lawton was visiting late at night with her daughter, a senior at Pali, when her daughter got a phone call. Friends, who were at a party, asked her to come and pick them up because they were in no shape to drive. They had attended the In One Instant assembly the week before. Corporate and local sponsors of Streetwise Media include State Farm Insurance, Mercedes Benz Driving Academy, Palisades Charter High Booster Club, Pacific Palisades Woman’s Club, Fineshriber Family Foundation, Kehillat Israel and Of One Mind. The nonprofit is seeking additional sponsors and donations to continue the program at PaliHi and to expand throughout Los Angeles. Visit www.streetwisemedia.org.
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