Year 10 students at Crusoe College are getting a virtual insight into some of the challenges involved in the safe operation of a motor vehicle this week through the Positive Choices road safety program.
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Instructor David Dressing took the teenagers through various scenarios which get many young drivers into trouble on the roads, through a specialised driving simulator.
Assistant principal Richelle Hollis said the scenarios included bad weather, speed, texting and specially designed "beer goggles".
"You can't actually teach this stuff in a real car, they get in and they can speed up to whatever they like but then they start to lose control or they don't have as much control as what they think they might," she said.
"It's all safe because it's all computer simulated so nobody's going to get hurt but they actually see the dangers of all the things that can impact on driving."
Ms Hollis said the different scenarios were designed to target some of the pitfalls common to drivers in their first or second year on the road.
"There's a wet weather scenario, there's drink driving, there's an SMS scenario where he gets one student to SMS another student while they're driving and they've got to text back a response and each time the students have actually crashed the simulated car so they understand that, 'hang on a sec, I can't text and drive'," she said.
"They sit in a small group and they watch each other do it and when they can see that this student's crashed the car or wrapped it around a tree or whatever, then they go 'oh jeez if I do SMS that could happen' so it makes it real for them."
Ms Hollis said the program had proved very popular with the students, who couldn't wait to get back to class.
"The kids have responded so well, they've wanted to come back at recess and lunch time and after school, they were here before school waiting to have a second go so it's just been fabulous," she said.
Year 10 students Eliza Poulter and Jasmine Marek said the classes had taught them a lot about the realities of on road driving.
"We learnt how easy it is to get distracted when your driving and how easy it is to crash into a tree or something like that and just how much we have to concentrate," Eliza said.
"It's so hard to keep one hand on the wheel, you just drift off the road so it's really, really hard."
"You never think it would happen to you but then you realise it's very easy for it to happen to anyone," Jasmine said.
