Prepping for Prom: Cops Plan Week of Activities to Keep Kids Safe

Next week, will conduct a series of activities aimed at making students aware of the dangers of drunk or reckless driving.

On Monday, cops will pass out brochures with information on high school-aged students who have been killed in speed-related accidents.

On Tuesday, police will recruit students to represent traffic “statistics.”

“Throughout the day, I randomly call kids’ names over the P.A.,” said school resource officer Det. Kelly Henson. Those students will then don a red shirt and will remain mute for the rest of the day, with their silence representing young lives lost to car accidents.

On Wednesday, students who buckle up will get a sweet incentive.

“We do a seatbelt enforcement on school property,” Henson said. “The kids get a candy bar if they’re wearing their seatbelt.”

Things will take a more serious turn on Thursday, when police will present a legal update class to student on the consequences of unsafe or drunk driving.

Just hours before the May 6 prom, Romeoville police and firefighters will team with Pfeiffer’s Towing to bring home the dangers of drunken driving with a simulated crash.

“We do the whole jaws of life [thing],” Henson said. “[Students] get actually cut out of the car and strapped down on a stretcher.” In the past, she added, teens have not taken the demonstration lightly.

“They take it seriously,” she said. “A couple years ago, a couple of girls go so worked up that they were crying.”

 By the numbers:

• According to the Illinois State Police, the state’s zero-tolerance law means that anyone under age 21 who drinks and drives can lose their driving privileges, even if they are under the legal limit of .08 blood alcohol level.
• Under state DUI laws, underage drivers who are convicted lose all driving privileges for a minimum of two years under the “Use It and Lose It” program, and face up to one year in prison. A second underage DUI conviction comes with a mandated five-year loss of driving privileges, five days imprisonment or 240 hours of community service and a possible one-year sentence.
• Will County had 100 “Use It & Lose It” violations in 2008.
• Drivers under age 21 also involved in 17 percent of all alcohol-related fatal crashes, according to 2008 Illinois State Police data. A third strike means at losing your license for at least 10 years, a mandatory 18-30 months of periodic imprisonment and a prison sentence of up to seven years.
• The penalties for aggravated DUI involving serious injury or death are even harsher, netting up to 12 years in prison, and any person under age 18 who is charged with an offense in which a passenger was seriously injured or killed may be permanently denied a driver’s license or driver’s license renewal by the Secretary of State’s office.
• Nationwide, six people between the ages of 15 to 20 die in a crash every day, and two in five Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some point in their lives, according to the ISP.
• Drunken-driving crashes killed 13,294 Americans in 2008.
• In Illinois in 2008, 408 people died in alcohol-related crashes. More than 2,000 drivers under age 21 lost their driving privileges.
• Eighty-three percent of Illinois drivers arrested for DUI are first-time offenders.
• In Illinois, the total average cost of a first DUI conviction, including legal fees, court costs, income loss and driver’s license reinstatement, is $16,100. The costs are even higher when they involve medical treatment for injuries, compensatory damages for crash survivors and jury trials.

Soure: Illinois State Police and the Secretary of State’s 2010 Illinois DUI Fact Book.