Event sponsored by the Notre Dame SADD club gave students a virtual distracted driving lesson behind the wheel.
More photos from Notre Dame's SADD event are here.
Distracted driving continues to be a major cause of motor-vehicle collisions, especially among young people, according to the PEERS Foundation, a nonprofit that provides teenagers with the necessary knowledge for a healthy and successful life through real-life situations and challenges.
In fact, more than 3,390 people nationwide were killed in 2016 in automobile accidents that involved a distracted driver, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
On Tuesday, Feb. 13, Notre Dame's SADD club, which works to provide NDP students with the best prevention and intervention tools possible to deal with issues resulting from destructive decisions, hosted a distracted-driving simulation event in conjunction with PEERS that brought an actual driving simulator to the school's gymnasium, according to Gretchen Glick, an NDP English teacher who moderates the school's SAAD club.
"In partnership with General Motors, the Augmented Reality Distracted Driving Education Simulator (ARDDES) we brought to campus gave students a safe, virtual reality environment that exposes them to to the dangers of distractions such as phone calls, texting, and social media use while driving to educate teens about vehicle and roadway safety," Glick said.
Notre Dame students who participated in the simulations sat in the driver's seat of an immobile GM vehicle with key function features, including the steering wheel, turn signals and pedals while wearing a "Meta2" head-mounted augmented reality display that presented them with realistic scenarios. Similar to real life, ARDDES drivers had to make quick decisions regarding traffic, pedestrians, passengers and cell phones in order to avoid potential collisions.
Terry Rhadigan, executive director, GM corporate giving, said that as a future is envisioned with zero crashes, there must first be an increase in safe practices in and around vehicles.
In 2016, the latest year that statistics are available from NHTSA, more than 3,390 people nationwide were killed in automobile accidents that involved a distracted driver.
The PEERS Foundation also partnered with augmented reality developers, Gravity Jack, a top choice for PEERS due to their experience completing similar projects for Intel Corporation and the United States Department of Defense.
“The incorporation of augmented reality into our ARDDES simulator will change the way interactive educational and driving simulation will be done in the future,” said Michael Seymore, chairman of the PEERS Foundation Board.
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About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy
Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. The school's upper school enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower schools enroll students in jr. kindergarten through grade eight. All three schools are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDPMA is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school's home page at www.ndpma.org.