you’re not leaving until you smoke this whole carton of dead people pictures

You’re Not Leaving Until You Smoke This Whole Carton of Dead People Pictures

An essay by Zacharath Klein-Sampsell

Scare tactics don’t work.

It’s a common practice in Drivers ed classes to have a day where the students endure a slideshow of gruesome pictures involving the mangled corpses of drunk drivers, people who weren’t wearing a seat belt, and people on their phones that couldn’t see a tree in front on them. The pictures themselves are uncensored except for the patients faces for whatever good that does. These presentations often are accompanied by an emergency room nurse who begins softly weeping halfway through to even further convey sadness and the requirement for empathy when its already apparent that these events are incredibly tragic. Who the hell, who the goddamn fucking hell thought this over-saturation of condensed depression to an audience of (mostly) teenagers was a good idea?

Sure, when I was fifteen I saw the aftermath of a man who decided to fall asleep on a set of train tracks, and that same year had to collect a mans body at the bottom of a waterfall, but the difference there is that those are events I volunteered to work on and learn about and just in general be involved with. When a gaggle of young people go in for their bi-weekly drivers education and suddenly the light is dimmed and a crying man shows you a driver shish-kabobed on a yield sign, that’s just cruel! Its the equivalent of your parents saying “you’re not leaving until you smoke that whole carton of cigarettes!” but you didn’t smoke in the first place so you’re just confused for why you’re being treated like this. Not only is this aspect so commonly used in drivers ed confusing, mortifying, and traumatizing to individuals of differing sensitivities, it plays into this outdated format of discipline where we need to callous ourselves in order to comply with some mythological toughness that has done nothing but damage us communicably as a generation. Actor and Comedian Danny Pudi said it best in 2014: “when your message to the youth is heavy handed your audience will grow up to be whiny sarcastic babies”.

Census studies show that attack advertisements against candidates in elections create less positive impact for voters than advertisements that just provide information. The same principle – that general information is better on the viewer than producing content that heavily emphasizes negative aspects of a topic – can be applied to lifestyle teachings.

Honestly, as long as the students are aware of the effects that controlled substances have on their bodies and the way they interact with machinery, we can call it good. As long as students know that you shouldn’t be distracted while driving, we can call it good. As long as the students know to strap themselves in so they don’t get cut in half by the windshield, we can call it good. Don’t insult your audience by assuming their common sense differs more than a little from the common and don’t traumatize sixteen year-olds with your gore-porn collection. You’re neighborhood D.A.R.E. bullshit already does that.