Prom night was coming up, so a group of students at Ripley High School in Ripley, West Virginia decided to warn their classmates about the dangers of drinking and driving. They produced a drunk driving PSA (public service announcement) that not only impressed the school – it went on to win first place in a statewide competition.
The video takes the point of view of a mother waiting up for a son who hasn’t come home. It doesn’t go into great detail – your imagination can fill in the details of what happened when some teens mixed it up with a case of beer and a car.
The video won first place in the fourth annual No School Spirits contest sponsored by the West Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control Administration. You can see the runner-up entries here.
If you’re going to get people thinking about drinking and driving, high school is the place to start, and having students exercise their creativity with a drunk driving PSA is a good way to do it. While the PSA probably won’t be seen by millions, the contest did get some smart high schoolers thinking about the problem of drinking and driving, and perhaps making up their minds not to be part of it.