The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

Joplin Metro

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April 12, 2009

Program to offer students ‘high-impact alcohol awareness’

By Mike Pound

mpound@joplinglobe.com

CARL JUNCTION, Mo. — Students at Carl Junction High School will receive an up-close and personal look at the dangers of drinking and driving.

The national Save a Life Tour will make a stop at the high school today. The tour specializes in presenting “high-impact alcohol awareness” programs across the country. Greg Bliss, a sales associate with the tour, said it presents about 700 alcohol-awareness programs a year.

Bliss said the program is designed to give teenagers a realistic look at what can happen when someone drinks and opts to get behind the wheel.

“We bring home the idea that there is a cause and effect for your decisions, and this is the effect (of drinking and driving),” he said. “We can’t tell you not to drink. We can show what can happen if you choose to drink.”

One of the highlights of the tour is a driving simulation developed by Kramer International, the parent company of the Save a Life Tour. Bliss said the simulator is placed in the dashboard of a Ford Taurus and depicts what happens when a car is driven by a person who has been drinking. The simulator allows the person in the driver’s seat to experience what is like to drive under the influence of alcohol.

“The vehicle actually gets drunk,” Bliss said. “It allows a sober person to get into a vehicle that gets drunk.”

He said Kramer International has been in business for more than 30 years. The company was created to take drug- and alcohol-free events to college campuses across the country. The company soon branched out and began staging similar events at high schools. As the company grew, Bliss said, schools and universities began asking if it could develop programs that were more proactive.

“They began asking if we could put something together that would address drinking and driving,” he said.

In addition to working with college and high-school students, the Save a Life Tour has presented programs on military bases all over the country, Bliss said.

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