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A mock Every 15 Minutes Crash
History
The Every 15 Minutes program originated in Canada and was soon adopted in the United States first in Spokane, Washington. The site of the first Every 15 Minutes program was in Chico which was presented by the Chico Police Department in 1995.
Planning and Events
Planning
The Every 15 Minutes program starts months in advance of the actual presentation. This includes all of the involved agencies, students, and administrators from all schools getting together, and planning the event. This includes the selection of the students to be involved in the program.
Firefighters using the Jaws of Life to extricate students from a vehicle.
First Day
The day of the presentation starts with a student being removed from class, immediately after the start of the day. Following that, an additional student is removed from class every fifteen minutes. The students that are pulled from class get made-up to look dead and become the "living dead". They attend their classes for the rest of the day but are not allowed to speak to anyone. Sometime during the day, usually around 1 p.m, a traffic crash is simulated, on school grounds, which involves some of the students. In the planned crash, at least one of those volunteer students is "killed", one is transported to the hospital but dies there, and one student is the drunk driver. The simulated crash is handled by the responding agencies, such as police, fire, and medical services. The drunk driver is arrested by the local police agency.The drunk driver is taken to the local jail and booked and spends the night in jail. The agencies play out a real scenario of the response to a drunk driving crash, in front of all the students. After the crash scene, the living dead leave school grounds until the next morning.
After the crash scene, the living dead, as well as the members involved in the crash scene go on a retreat. By separating themselves from their communities, the living dead reinforce the sentiment of loss and permanence. At the retreat, students play ice-breaker team building games in order to become close with one another, eat dinner, and eventually engage in a reflective session about the day's events.
Second Day
The second day of the program involves a school assembly in which the involved students return to school. At the assembly, there are different speakers from the community that address different aspects of alcohol related crashes. These can include first hand events, or the perspective of alcohol related crashes from first responders. In addition, the involved students comment on their experiences, as well as some of the parents involved.
Recent Advances
Recently, several schools in California have put on an Every Fifteen Minutes assembly. Due in large part to major grants and guidance by the California Highway Patrol, the program has made its way to even more students' hometowns. Since its inception, technology (especially that in the hands of the students organizing the program) has improved the reality and heightened the gravity of the issue of drunken driving. In the planning stage, e-mail, Google Documents, and online financial transactions sped up the process. In the carrying-out of the event, new technology was most prominently demonstrated by the incorporation of a video that is played at the Day 2 assembly. Nowadays, for most programs, student videographers document the events of the day and then work during the night to piece together a comprehensive video of the cause-and-effect relationship between drunken driving and police involvement, family burden, and community loss. This video allows the entire student body to see the events that happened after the crash scene on campus the day before and allows for greater awareness of the consequences of drunken driving.
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