Anti-DWI program: did it go to far?

On a Monday morning in May, highway patrol officers visited 20 classes at El Camino High School in Oceanside, Calif, to announce that several students had been killed in car wrecks caused by drunk drivers over the weekend.

Classmates wept. Some became hysterical.

A few hours and many tears later, the pain turned to fury when the teenagers learned that it was all a hoax - an exercise designed by school officials to dramatize the consequences of drinking and driving and to scare the students straight.

At school assemblies, students held up posters that read: "Death is real. Don't play with our emotions."

When the students of a Physics class became extremely upset after learning of the death of a basketball star in the school, the teacher was prompted to spill the beans, and told them immediately that it was all staged.


What do you think of the school's hoax?

I think that this was sick and cruel.

This was a fantastically stupid idea on every level, yet for some reason I'm not surprised.

It will scar the students, and possibly cause long-lasting psychological problems.

It won't stop people from driving drunk, because drunk drivers don't think that they're going to kill anybody, they're just delusional about their ability to drive.

While dwi is a serious problem, there are less traumatic programs in place here that have been proven effective over time. I doubt this cruel hoax will have prevented one incident of dwi.

I have no doubt that some outraged parents will sue, while others will cause those that decided to do this to loose their jobs. The school clearly went way over the line on this one.