Racing to Reveal Drunk-Driving Dangers

Giggling as her car smashed into concrete barriers and then skidded onto the sidewalk, Cristy Chen had a simulated drunk-driving experience that was almost too believable.

The 19-year-old Cypress College sophomore was playing a race car video game while wearing an eyesight-warping pair of goggles intended to replicate the effects of a six-pack of beer. She was rehearsing for an event her youth leadership group is putting on tonight at The Block in Orange.

“I have no judgment, no idea what’s real,” said Chen, an alumni member of the Orange County Friday Night Live Partnership Youth Advisory Council. “And this is just my vision that’s affected. I wouldn’t even want to know how badly I’d drive if I weren’t thinking straight.”

Members of the council -- a dozen students from across the county who actively discourage the use of alcohol and drugs -- hope the drunk-driving simulation will convince their peers they aren’t invincible to the danger of drinking and driving.

Friday Night Live is a statewide youth coalition formed in 1984 to make sure teens have access to safe rides home on Friday nights.

Sebastian Restrepo, a 17-year-old senior at Sunny Hills High in Fullerton, suggested the video game event and asked the state group for funding last December.

“I really wanted us to get back to those roots of encouraging safe driving,” he said.

A $7,500 grant from the state group and other sponsorships are paying for the no-drinking-and-driving campaign, timed to coincide with start of the holiday season.

The evening will begin with the 6 p.m. unveiling of a billboard depicting a skateboarder on one side and a hearse on the other, and a message that reads “What Kind of Ride Do You Want Out of Life?”

During a vigil, audience and council members will carry 61 candles, one for each person killed in alcohol-related vehicle collisions last year in Orange County. Simulation participants will wear Fatal Vision goggles and compete against others not handicapped by the eyewear.

During her practice run on the simulated race car drive Wednesday, council member Miranda Wang uprooted several trees and a newspaper vending machine.

“Teenagers need something like this to prove to them that even things we do every day, like playing video games, are totally different once you’ve been drinking,” said Miranda, 17, a senior at Foothill High in North Tustin.