Standing at the side of a school bus trying to break the chill of the crisp, cool, early morning wind in the Clinton High School parking lot Tuesday were about 10 seniors who had braved the cold to challenge themselves with a golf cart and a driving course. They maneuvered the cart around the course lined with orange cones and, by the time the day was over, almost all juniors and seniors at the school had attempted to master the course.

For the most part, the students, accompanied by N.C. Highway Patrol trooper David Kidd, had an easy ride the first go around, but things heated up when they placed special goggles on their eyes to make them feel like they were legally drunk.

“Aw man,” said Juan Andrade, a CHS senior, as he flattens a cone.

“That is a BMW you just hit,” trooper Kidd tells Andrade as he continues to guide his way through the course. “That one is a Lexus or a pedestrian,” Kidd adds as Andrade rolls over another.

As the rest of Andrade’s classmates gave him a good-natured ribbing as they awaited their chance for a turn behind the wheel, the message that the goggles was sending is not lost on the rolled-over cones — drinking and driving don’t mix.

“It was all right,” said Andrade. “It is a big difference when you are behind the wheel and have those goggles on, they make you feel dizzy.”

Daniel Bell, another CHS senior, also had his share of overturned cones during his ride. “Those goggles are crazy,” he said with a laugh. “Everything moves where you look. You drive through it once and it’s OK, but then you put those goggles on and it is like, woah ... This kind of thing will make you think twice (about drinking and driving) for sure. ”

Kidd took senior Taylor Hales for a very cautious ride through the course. But in the end, the cones Hales knocked over were straightened out by Clinton Police officer and school SRO (student resource officer) Terry Pope and set for the next driver.

“Without the goggles, it was so much easier,” she said. “But when you have them on — man, it gives you a headache. It was hard to concentrate on driving.”

Which is exactly the point of the exercise Kidd and the N.C. Highway Patrol are showing the students. With proms coming up later this week, Kidd is making rounds at every high school, making sure some of those who may be tempted to drink and then drive will make another choice, especially when it comes to getting behind the wheel.

“I was at Union and Midway already,” he said. “On Wednesday, I will be at Lakewood and back at Midway ... It gives awareness for drinking and driving, and it gives us a chance to educate the young people about drinking and driving. It also gives them a chance to see what effect alcohol will have on them. It is a very effective tool in helping get that point across.”

“It makes you think, it really does,” Hales admited after her not-so-clean run. “Because if you can’t do it between cones in a golf cart, imagine what you will do behind the wheel of a car. It gets you thinking ... I appreciate them coming out to do this with us.”

“You think it is easy,” said senior Mario Bannerman, “and I figured it would be pretty easy, but when I got those goggles on, man, forget it (laughs). I was all over the place. I don’t drink, but after that, there’s no way I’m planning on it.”

According to statistics by North Carolina Crime Control and Safety, more than one-third of all teen traffic fatalities involve alcohol. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that 3,174 drivers between the ages of 15 and 20 died in motor vehicle crashes in 2007, down 9.1 percent from 3,490 in 2006 and down 5.5 percent from 3,358 in 1997. An additional 252,000 young drivers were injured in 2007.

“This is something that we can do with the kids that they enjoy, but they are also learning from it at the same time,” said Kidd. “They are learning, and I feel like they appreciate it as well because they see that alcohol can effect them mentally and physically — they leave here with that awareness. With prom coming up, and kids tend to want to experiment around this time, we are just hoping that we will reach some of them to prevent that. We have had several tragedies in the past during prom weekend and maybe we can do something here today by doing a hands-on demonstration that will prevent something like that from happening.”

Kidd said that every high school he has dealt with has welcomed him with opened arms.

“It is funny to watch,” said Kidd, “but it is also teaching a valuable lesson, because you can see the difficulty in driving the cart through the course if you were drunk, and more importantly, it shows you what effect (alcohol) can have on the body and what can happen on the road and it is great to have that kind of support behind you.”

Spending an entire day in chilly weather, rounding the same course over and over, talking to each student in a golf cart may seem monotonous to some, but to an over 20-year veteran like Kidd, it is about saving the lives one student at a time.

“If there is something that I can say or something that I can trigger in just one of the kids,” he says, “that will prevent an accident or a fatality — then it is all worth it.”

To reach Doug Clark call 910-592-8137 ext. 139 or send email to sisports@myclintonnc.com.