Drunk driving simulator underscores consequences of dangerous decisions

Welcome Week -- the first few days of the year set to acclimate freshmen to the perils and pearls of IU life. But when I was a fresh high school graduate in my first week at Arizona State, I got a deeper lesson in life.\nMy brother was in a drunk driving accident and nearly died.\nHis friend was behind the wheel of a loaded Corvette. They had both been drinking. It was merely coincidence that my brother was the passenger and not the offending driver. \nI've never considered driving drunk. Sibling near-deaths will do that to you.\nSo pushing through a mass of freshmen, I snaked my way around a few Indiana Memorial Union corridors Friday to the drunk driving simulator. I waited about a half-hour before I took my seat.\nSome people came and went through the simulator room without a virtual scratch. They left looking confident they could flout the safety of other people and drive drunk without consequence. They should have watched me.\nThe machine was a beast of complicated technology. Everything in the Ford coupe mock-up worked -- including the air conditioning and radio. I was told it cost $2.5 million and took NASA seven years to build. There are 30-some sensors imbedded in the driver's seat, taking the driver's weight and height into account to determine the gender and alcohol tolerance of the would-be offender. Serious equipment, serious reality.\nMy drive started well enough. "You're going 60 in a 25," said the attendant. Nothing unusual there.\nThen I started to "feel" the effects of the booze. As I slowed to a red-light stop, the motion in the simulator was distorted, making me feel nauseated. Every time I made a mistake, I overcorrected for the error, either swerving wildly into the other lane of traffic or screeching to a halt 30 feet before a stop sign. And the police in the simulator don't pull you over. I was in this thing till the end.\nThe end began quickly. My blood alcohol content somewhere around 0.25, I turned left, nearly rammed a Mac truck and the ensuing series of overcorrecting swerves spelled doom for me. A few seconds later my face was planted in the side of a building. I'm dead.\nSo welcome, freshmen. You're going to have a lot of parties to crash. And after that, you're going to have powerful decisions to make. It's a part of IU life.