Driving rodeo teaches safety skills

By Uriah A. Kiser

Published: April 23, 2008

STAFFORD — Students from six area high schools competed last week in an event designed to test their skills behind the steering wheel.

The 13th-annual Safe Driving Rodeo, held April 18 at Stafford High School, featured many challenges for the students, including range, on-the-road tests and a written exam that consisted of 60 questions.

“We really teach them to drive and break some bad habits, like hand position, not using parking brakes, riding too close to vehicles ahead of them, speed — you name it we do it,” said Peggy Perry, a driving instructor at Stafford High School.

Perry said that parental involvement is key to creating a safe driver out of teenagers. The best place for parents to start is to give their teen a driver’s manual, obtained at a local Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles office, according to Perry.

Driving educators and Stafford law enforcement officers looked on as students maneuvered their way through the challenging range tests, which included lane-changing and parallel parking.

Stafford High School student Miriam Robertson completed her high school driving test earlier in the year and scored 100 percent on her tests. She was hand-selected to come out and compete with her fellow students. Already holding her learner’s permit, Robertson said she has the experience and will be ready to get her license in less than 15 days.

“My mom takes me out a lot mostly everywhere we go, mostly to Fredericksburg, Potomac Mills, Richmond, wherever, I mostly drive,” said Robertson.
In addition to the tests, the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office and Virginia Department of Transportation were on hand with demonstrations of their own.

Popular among the teens was an intoxication simulator. Students were asked to wear head goggles that blurred their vision, and then were required to drive a golf cart through a small group of traffic cones resembling a figure eight. The course was designed to illustrate the effects of alcohol on driving ability.

“Once I put the goggles on I had a hard time putting my foot down on the pedal, and then once a made a mistake, a cone got stuck under the car and kept the accelerator going; it was pretty much a disaster,” said John Andre, who was competing from James Monroe High School.

James Monroe High School participated in the rodeo, along with students from all five of Stafford’s high schools — Stafford, Brooke Point, Mountain View, North Stafford and Colonial Forge.

The sheriff’s office also demonstrated the importance of wearing seatbelts while driving, with a rollover crash simulator. A crash dummy sat inside a modified pickup truck cab. When the sheriff’s deputy flips the switch, the cab rolls over, violently ejecting the dummy from the passenger-side window.

“I think the most important thing is that we are out here trying to save lives, and demonstrating to these kids the importance of safety,” said Bill Kennedy, with the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office.

VDOT construction crews speaking to the teen divers wanted to emphasize awareness of road crews.

“Out here it’s about safety and not getting caught up in the distractions, trying to change the radio channel, trying to control children in the back seat of a vehicle,” said Michael Bonepart with VDOT. “We had a work zone set up, with signs and everything, and had a vehicle blow past us and crash and swore they never saw us.”