May 3, 2007 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Michael M. Gimbel wants young people to see the world through the eyes of a drunk person — before the parties of prom season start.
As director of the Office of Substance Abuse Education at Sheppard Pratt Health System, in Baltimore, he outfits teenage drivers with “fatal vision” glasses, which simulate the feeling of being intoxicated, and makes high-school students drive a golf cart through an obstacle course.
“All of them go, like, one mile an hour,” Mr. Gimbel says, laughing, “You know they’re terrified to drive fast because they can’t see!”
It’s all part of a program called Drive to Survive, which Mr. Gimbel created a year and a half ago to educate young people about the dangers of drunk driving — along with other automobile hazards such as speeding, failing to wear seat belts, or talking on cellphones.
The program, conducted monthly with up to 25 students a session, was developed in collaboration with nurses at the University of Maryland’s R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. “We didn’t want to do a ‘scared straight’ program,” Mr. Gimbel says, “but we wanted to do what I call a ‘scared reality’ program.”
Guest speakers at the program have included victims of drunk driving, including patients who have suffered brain injuries or paralysis, and parents who have lost their children, as well as a paramedic who has retrieved crash victims via helicopter.
Support for the program’s annual budget of $25,000 has come from two Maryland grant makers, the Joseph & Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds and the Michael Mann Fund, as well as Frankel Automotive Group, a local company, which asks its customers to send their children to the program.
Mr. Gimbel hopes that Drive to Survive, can soon expand and become mandatory for local teenagers. “It’s not driver’s ed,” he says. “It’s not the old-time, boring movies that people remember. It is something very real, very emotional, very dramatic, but interactive.”
