Johnny Hates Jazz

High school students these days are incredibly creative with their “prom-posals,” the invitation to take a fellow student to the end-of-year prom. Since most area high schools’ proms are all in April, it’s safe to say the majority of such elaborate requests have already taken place.

The key word in that first paragraph is “safe,” which is what school officials, along with area law enforcement and safety personnel, hope will be the pro-active word among teens attending the festive dance. This explains the annual incorporation of “Shattered Dreams,” a dramatization of the impact of distracted driving and the effects that it can bring into anyone’s life.

The Shattered Dreams program began some 20 years ago by St. Mary's Medical Center in an effort to educates students about the need to be an undistracted driver through a multimedia presentation that begins in a school's auditorium or gymnasium, and ends in the football stadium. It includes video and live testimonials, as well as an enactment by students (usually on the school’s football field) as accident victims, in an attempt to increase awareness about the effects that texting, substance consumption and other factors can have while driving. The area’s Trauma Hawk unit is usually part of the enactment.

Many schools in southeast Florida mandate juniors and seniors who purchased tickets to their prom to attend the powerful assembly, which usually takes place one day in advance.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, distracted driving is any activity that diverts attention from driving, including talking or texting on your phone, eating and drinking, talking to people in your vehicle, fiddling with the stereo, entertainment or navigation system - anything that takes your attention away from the task of safe driving. Distracted driving, whether from texting or driving under the influence, is one of the reasons that teen drivers are four times more likely to be involved in a fatal car accident than adults, according to statistics from St. Mary’s.

Now, I'm not here saying what students will or will not do on prom night - or on any other day (or night) of the year. But I also cannot say what non-students will or will not do, either. What I can do is urge everyone to be safe on the roads, regardless of age, gender, or destination; some 2,500 accidents involving teen drivers happen in Palm Beach County annually, and not all are the fault of a teen driver.