Wrecked Cars Take Center Stage in Cautionary High School Play

Combing the dusty auto lot for his dream car, Mike Shapiro stopped short at the sight of a blue Honda Accord--its driver’s door a tangle of contorted metal, the wrecked windshield a maze of cracks.

“Hey, what about this one?” he called, admiring the pulverized front end.

Shapiro, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, wanted the worst junkers Wolf’s Towing and Auto Repair could supply. The wrecks will be key props in an elaborate morality play opening today at Valencia High School.

More than 100 supporting actors, including students and their families, have roles in the grisly two-day scenario, meant to hammer home the dangers of drunk driving.

The main act depicts the bloody aftermath of a car crash. But what sets this program apart--and what Shapiro and others say make it so powerful--is the part played by students and their parents.

Twenty-five students will play victims of drunk drivers. Their parents were asked to write their obituaries, a task so hard that a few declined.

“My poor secretary spent two days in tears, typing up the obituaries,” said Marie Yagmur, Valencia’s assistant principal.

“You start off going, ‘Oh, this is a program, this is a show.’ And you read someone’s obituary and it doesn’t seem so distant and pretend anymore.”

The program may hit particularly close to home in Santa Clarita, a suburb of open roads and a population that is 40% under the drinking age, compared to 26% nationally, according to city officials. Four teenagers have been killed in car crashes here in the last two months, although the incidents weren’t alcohol-related.

The Every 15 Minutes program, named for the frequency of drunk-driving deaths nationwide, was begun by the Chico Police Department in 1995 and has spread to schools across California.