Drunk Driving Hoax.

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Ol' Blue Eyes.
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Mibba
June 12th, 2008 at 09:34pm
At a California high school, students were informed Monday morning that several students had died in a car crash over the weekend. Some of the students, who were informed that friends of their's were in the crash, began panicking, sobbing.

Although an assembly had been planned to announce that the whole crash had not happened, and was in a fact a hoax designed to scare the kids enough to keep them from driving under the influence, the extreme reactions of several students prompted teachers to inform them of the hoax.

Opinions please? Was this a good thing to do, or was it far too much and harmful to the students?

Source.
Nikki-Inkz
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June 13th, 2008 at 06:37am
Woah, way too far. That's disgusting that they thought putting someone through a process of grieving for loved ones is the only way to prevent them from dink driving. I'm sickened that anyone in authority, in fact, anyone that can influence young minds would ever put them through such a traumatic ordeal.
Ol' Blue Eyes.
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Mibba
June 13th, 2008 at 01:46pm
suzie_k
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June 13th, 2008 at 01:52pm
That is pretty full on way to do things.
Ireland had a dreadful problem of road death involving alcohol.
I fell what should be done is that as part of a driving lesson people should be made go into an casualty and see the effects of drink driving.
Just to make sure it hits home.
Anji
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June 15th, 2008 at 04:41am
Isn't that kinda stretching the Third Geneva Convention. They could get charged for that.
Anji
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June 15th, 2008 at 05:06am
Anji:
Isn't that kinda stretching the Third Geneva Convention. They could get charged for that.
Actually it's the UNCAT I think, definately goes against some of the Universal Decleration. Because it counts as a kind of mental torture, I guess.
Kurtni
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Mibba Blog
June 15th, 2008 at 01:01pm
Thats fucking ridiculous. Death is an extremely traumatic thing to deal with as a teenager and it shouldn't be used as a teaching method. I can't imagine what those students who had friends who "died" were thinking. I completely agree with Anji, that's mental torture and it absolutely disgusts me that a school would think that's something that's acceptable to do.

I just can't understand how the students who "died" could do that to their friends and classmates. Thats cruel.

I was reading that article...

"They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized," said guidance counselor Lori Tauber.

I hope they fire her in all honesty. A guidance counseler saying that students were intended to be traumatized? Thats stupid beyond all reason, it is not a schools place to traumatize their students.
neen bean
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June 16th, 2008 at 12:24am
Kurtni:


I hope they fire her in all honesty. A guidance counseler saying that students were intended to be traumatized? Thats stupid beyond all reason, it is not a schools place to traumatize their students.
Interesting you say that because in my school we have a Code of Conduct for students and it states that students should be in a comfortable emotional state while they are at school or something along those lines.

If they have a code of conduct similiar to the one we have, that would be a total breach of their rights.

But anyways, I think if the school wanted to teach their students a lesson on not drinking and driving they could easily do it with honest information rather than a hoax. Drinking and driving is a bad enough concept on it's own.
Ol' Blue Eyes.
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Mibba
June 16th, 2008 at 05:39pm
We had a stimulation of a drunk driving crash at my school, but the difference, I think, was that while it was extremely realistic, it was clear that it was fake. I wonder what the outcome would have been if they hadn't notified the students until the assembly at the end of the day. Poor kids would have been devastated.

I wish I could find some sources about a follow up, but either nothing's being done to take action against the school, or the press has dropped it.
Bleach
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June 19th, 2008 at 04:19am
That's just warped.
Alot of people have already said what I was going to say.
But yeah, you should never tell something that traumatizing to a teenager as a joke. At this time in our lives our bodie's chemistry is off, I mean, some kids could have killed themselves.
Pretty Like Drugs
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June 19th, 2008 at 05:38am
"You feel betrayed by your teachers and administrators, these people you trust," said 15-year-old Carolyn Magos. "But then I felt selfish for feeling that way, because, I mean, if it saves one life, it's worth it."
^^
This immediately made me think of the whole Kantianism vs. Utilitarianism thing. Utilitarians would approve of this, if, as a result these students actually do develop some intense aversion to drink-driving, because then one could argue that the merit of their responsible behaviour extends beyond the agents themselves and benefits everyone else on the road that they have the potential to hit, and this good outweighs the bad this stunt caused, because that's only limited to the students, and therefore this act was ethically acceptable. But only if that's what results.

I never did find in any textbook a point where a Utilitarian would draw the line for their actions. Maybe cos these theories don't really take emotion into account. Anywho, if this was done to me I'd be furious considering I don't deal with death very well, and to have a friend's life be used as a pawn in some scheme would piss me off, regardless of the potential good it could do me and the others. I think overall this whole hoax was poorly executed. I mean they had to have known the students weren't going to receive this news calmly, and what with some teachers caving and spilling the beans and adding confusion to the mix... I understand their intentions were good but this was just not done right.
Ol' Blue Eyes.
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Mibba
June 19th, 2008 at 11:55am
I'm not condoning their actions, but I can't find a shred of evidence as to how bad the drunking and driving issue was in their community. I think that perhaps if it was bad enough, then this is more justifiable, but if the situation was not entirely out of hand. And the students who were actually involved, they must have believed that the situation was bad enough to merit this action, because I can't think what person would want to scare their friends like that without just cause.

The more I think about it, the more I find it hard to believe they actually did this.
Kurtni
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June 19th, 2008 at 07:08pm
Pretty Like Drugs:
because then one could argue that the merit of their responsible behaviour extends beyond the agents themselves and benefits everyone else on the road that they have the potential to hit, and this good outweighs the bad this stunt caused, because that's only limited to the students, and therefore this act was ethically acceptable.


Schools do not operate on utilitarianism ethics, it's their job to ensure that their students feel safe and comfortable in their school. Scaring them and lying to them is in no way an ethical behavior for a school.
Pretty Like Drugs
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June 20th, 2008 at 01:56am
Kurtni:
Schools do not operate on utilitarianism ethics, it's their job to ensure that their students feel safe and comfortable in their school. Scaring them and lying to them is in no way an ethical behavior for a school.

I should hope not, because under those kinds of moral standards there's a lot the school would get away with doing that I'm pretty sure the general public won't deem acceptable.

But the post did ask for opinions. I provided one based on a form of ethics, even if in reality it's not what the school operates under. Overall I wouldn't appreciate this if it happened to me but I do admit I have some some utilitarian in me, I recognise what they were trying to achieve was a good thing and I don't completely oppose it.

And if you want to criticise them for not doing their job, their job also entails teaching their students how to behave responsibly. You don't agree with their method in this particular case, there's no denying they went about this the wrong way. But bottom line is their job was exactly what they were trying to do.
Kurtni
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June 20th, 2008 at 09:58am
Pretty Like Drugs:
But bottom line is their job was exactly what they were trying to do.

It's never a schools job to scare and deceive their students. Prevent drunk driving? Sure, but in this case the ends did not justify the means. It's not me who disagrees with their method, it's the code of conduct set before all schools.
missand
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Mibba
June 20th, 2008 at 11:08am
Whether or not they were trying to make a point of drunk driving, this shouldn't have happened. I know what it's like to be told your friend has just died, I've lost three friends from school in the space of four months. Two due to a rare form of cancer and the other in a serious car accident. I saw the grave site, i saw him as he was being loaded into an ambulence.

It makes me sick that the school would even think about using that method as a way of making them aware of drink driving. It only make's the situation worse, your told your friends are dead then all of a sudden you find out that the school lied.
It's wrong, not to mention imoral. I mean, how could the so called victims even do that to their friends?
Kurtni
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Mibba Blog
June 20th, 2008 at 02:17pm
missand:
I mean, how could the so called victims even do that to their friends?

That's what I've been wondering. I'd really like to know what the school told the kids they asked to do this.
Pretty Like Drugs
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June 20th, 2008 at 06:18pm
Kurtni:
It's never a schools job to scare and deceive their students. Prevent drunk driving? Sure, but in this case the ends did not justify the means. It's not me who disagrees with their method, it's the code of conduct set before all schools.
Obviously the school has more than one responsibility, I guess the question is at what point should one take presedence(sp?) over the other? The way I see this whole thing is, the school took proactive action rather than reactive action - as in, waiting for an actual crash to happen involving drink driving students and then pointing out the dangers of a DUI. Which, to me, sounds like educating these kids at the expense of lives.

How far should an issue escalate before we break from the 'code of conduct' and take drastic action? For example, experts are worried polar bears will face extinction at the current rate of climate change, and still there are people who don't care enough to make changes to their lifestyle. Should they sit back and allow them to become extinct thinking, "That'll show them"? As we don't have the drink driving statistics of the area, we can't get into the reasons the school had for doing this, but this is my take on it.

And you can't be so absolute in the knowledge that the ends don't justify the means. You can't say for sure that after sitting through those agonising hours, those students didn't recognise the pain drink driving can cause. They might learn to not drink drive for life because they wouldn't want anyone else to go through what they went through. Think of the lives that could save, wherever they chose to go after leaving high school.
Kurtni
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June 20th, 2008 at 06:22pm
Pretty Like Drugs:
Obviously the school has more than one responsibility, I guess the question is at what point should one take presedence(sp?) over the other?
None of them, you balance your responsibilities. Schools all around the world have drunk driving prevention programs. Saying that manipulating their students was part of their responsibilities is outrageous to me, there are plenty of other ways to educate students, and they don't involve lying or emotionally traumatizing kids.
Pretty Like Drugs:
And you can't be so absolute in the knowledge that the ends don't justify the means. You can't say for sure that after sitting through those agonising hours, those students didn't recognise the pain drink driving can cause. .

Yes, I can, because I don't think scaring and lying to kids justifies the ends, even if the students now understand the pain of drunk driving. That is exactly what I meant.
Pretty Like Drugs
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June 20th, 2008 at 06:23pm
Ol' Blue Eyes.:
We had a stimulation of a drunk driving crash at my school, but the difference, I think, was that while it was extremely realistic, it was clear that it was fake.

I sat through one of those. This is a much better choice of action because it's probably as close as you can get to a crash without having to involve actual injuries. Which makes it very effective. I think what the school recognised though, was that there was still a certain emotional detachment. They obviously really wanted this to hit home.
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