4 Engaging Ways to Highlight Drowsy Driving Prevention Tips in Your Education Program

Ensure your lessons stick with students with these suggestions.

When it comes to drowsy driving prevention programs, it can be challenging to ensure your lessons grab students’ attention and stick with them after the program ends.

After all, the consequences of driving while drowsy aren’t always as well known as driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, despite them being just as serious.

To help get your message across and share your drowsy driving prevention tips in an effective, engaging way, it’s vital to incorporate hands-on activities into your educational program. By giving students a way to participate in your drowsy driving prevention program actively, you can illustrate how severe the consequences of getting behind the wheel while tired can be.

Our suggestions include:

1. Share staggering statistics
2. Incorporate videos 
3. Introduce hands-on activities and tools
4. Utilize a drowsy driving simulator

Keep reading to learn more about these drowsy driving prevention tips for your educational program.

Share staggering statistics

Your program participants may not realize how serious the consequences of drowsy driving can be since it’s not as widely publicized an issue as driving while drunk or under the influence of drugs is.

This is where sharing real-life statistics about fatigued or drowsy driving can help. Facts include:

• Driving after going without sleep for 20 hours is equivalent to driving with a .08% blood-alcohol concentration, the legal limit in the U.S.
• Your risk of getting into a car crash increases three times when you’re tired.
• Drowsy driving causes more than 100,000 car crashes and 1,500 deaths each year.

You can add a visual element to these statistics by using one of our “How Focused Are You?” Drowsy & Distracted Driving posters or floor banners. These eye-catching graphics help increase awareness and educate everyone looking at them about how dangerous drowsy driving can be.

Incorporate videos

Everyone learns differently, so if you’re presenting your drowsy driving prevention program with just one method (i.e., verbal lectures), you may not be engaging with your students as well as you’d like. 

Try introducing videos to your program to help grab your students’ attention and give them a visual lesson about the dangers of drowsy or fatigued driving. 

Fatal Vision offers DVD resources on drowsy driving, including our Asleep at the Wheel video. This video shares the stories of real-life accident victims and helps give program participants a vivid look at the repercussions of drowsy driving. This video also comes with student handouts and pre-and post-tests to help reinforce the material.

Introduce hands-on activities and tools

Another great drowsy driving prevention tip is to get your students involved with engaging, hands-on activities. These learning tools get participants actively engaged with the lessons, so critical information is more likely to stick with them.

Fatal Vision’s lineup of drowsy driving prevention activities and tools include:

• Fatal Vision® Drowsy and Distracted Goggles – These goggles simulate the momentary micro-sleeps that drivers experience when tired, which progressively get longer as time goes on. When paired with activities like those listed below, students can get a safe, firsthand look at how driving while tired can impact their skills and reaction times.
• DIES® Distracted Driving Activity Mat – The DIES® mat depicts a town with streets, crosswalks, and railroad crossings that participants are asked to “drive” through using the DIES® Steering Wheel. Completing the course once while driving usually and again with the goggles on helps reinforce just how severely driving skills are impacted by fatigue.
• Distract-A-Match® – Our Distract-A-Match® puzzle game uses timed, multi-tasking activities to show how dangerous and challenging driving while drowsy or distracted can be. Adding accessories like the Fatal Reaction audio unit helps further enrich the activity and drive your lesson home.

Utilize a drowsy driving simulator

You can take your drowsy driving prevention program one step further by bringing in a drowsy driving simulator like the Roadster Pedal Kart and SIDNE (Simulated Impaired Driving Experience) electric vehicle. When used with our drowsy and distracted goggles, these simulators give a realistic, truly hands-on way to experience the dangers of driving while tired.

Students are sure to remember their time behind the wheel of a drowsy driving simulator, meaning your program and its lessons will stick with participants for years to come.

To learn more about our drowsy driving prevention tools and how to incorporate them into your educational programs, visit our online store or contact our team today.