HUNTINGTON BEACH : Mock Accident Launches Campaign

Minutes after the lunch bell rang at Huntington Beach High School on Monday, sirens blared from every direction.

In the middle of the campus, a student--his face apparently bleeding--was lying on the ground next to a motorcycle embedded in the front end of a crumpled compact car.

As students crowded around the police cars, fire trucks, ambulance and television cameras, they quickly realized that the accident was not real, but staged to begin the Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s Red Ribbon Campaign for the 1989 holidays.

“Project Red Ribbon is a national MADD campaign that asks all Americans to ‘tie one on for safety.’ That is, tie a red ribbon on your car as a pledge to always have a sober driver behind the wheel,” said MADD President Sherry Metcalfe, whose parents were killed by a drunk driver five years ago.

During the holidays, “a lot of people drink who aren’t accustomed to drinking,” said Huntington Beach Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg, “and the accident rate goes up in direct relation to alcohol use.”

The mock accident “seemed scary. It made me realize what it would be like to see someone I know in that kind of an accident,” said senior cheerleader Aimee Cebulski. “We just had a smashed car (on campus) last year. Something like this has a lot more effect.”

The mock accident made a strong statement, said senior Chad Little, who played the victim in the accident. “Unfortunately, it might take a real accident to get to some” students.

In order to solve the problem, people need to be educated to the dangers of drunk driving and “the community as a whole must decide that it will not stand for it,” said Brian Davidson, Huntington Beach police accident investigator.