By David Fleet
Editor
Goodrich — On Friday morning Charlotte Bemus was behind the wheel and out of control.
“It was scary not having full control over the situation while driving,” said Bemus, a 17-year-old Goodrich High School junior and licensed driver. “If I were in this situation I would not want to hurt anyone, I was just worried about others.”
On Dec. 8, Bemus was one of more than 200 students who participated in the Save A Life Tour that was on campus to educate high school students on issues like careless driving, seatbelt usage, impaired driving, and distracted driving. The day included students watching a 35 minute educational video, followed by students using driving simulators.
“I felt like I was just out of control,” she said following a short stint on the impaired driving simulator.
The high impact safe driving awareness program informs, educates, and demonstrates the potentially deadly consequences resulting from poor choices and decisions made by the operator of a motor vehicle.
“Safety is our number one goal and we were pleased to host the Save a Life tour,” said Jesse Nardizzi, GHS assistant principal.  “We had approximately 225 students partake in the presentation and hopefully learned a valuable lesson on the dangers of distracted driving.  As always the students behaved exceptionally and the day was another reminder of what makes GHS such a special place.”
GHS Jr. Lilly Allar, is a 17-year-old licensed driver experienced the effects of a distracted driver.
“I don’t text and drive,” said Allar. “It was pretty scary, it really made you go slower. I had some anxiety while driving. I was trying to not crash into anything.”
Drivers were texted messages while operating the simulator, she said.
“They texted me questions while driving and it pulled me in when I tried to answer,” she said. “I use the do not disturb function on my phone when I drive. This convinced me not to text and drive.”
Retired Grand Blanc Township Police Officer Tim Lintz, a 15 year veteran attended the event on Friday and shared a few stories about accidents.
“I can tell you story after descriptive story about fatal accidents,” said Lintz. “All kinds of crazy causes, from motorcycles head-on to one of the worst a four fatality accident on the freeway to kids coming home from college late, falling asleep and hitting a cement abutment. There were devastating injuries.”
“These accidents are no joke, I still have trauma from those accidents,” he said. “It’s chaos. This will help you stay alive, and keep others alive. This is not a video game.”
GHS Jr. Ben Sennabaum, a licensed driver, experienced a few minutes impaired driving in a simulator. The controls and accompanying video transitioned from sober to impaired driving.
“It was really a lot harder than I expected,” said 16-year-old GHS Jr. Ben Sennabaum. “It was eye-opening and prompted the sensation that I was not driving the car. The car did not move the way it should.”