Court program provides students eye-opening look at drunken driving

By ELISABETH HULETTE, Staff Writer

Published 11/13/09

Maybe the wide-eyed students who visited District Court in Annapolis yesterday have considered driving and texting, or driving while drunk.

Shannon Lee Zirkle - The Capital State Trooper Chad Anderson talks about telling parents their children have been killed in drunken-driving accidents. Almost 100 county teens attended the Schools in the Court presentation, watching trials and learning the consequences of bad decisions.

Maybe they've even tried it.

But after hearing stories from a trauma nurse, a recovering drug addict and the sister of a midshipman killed by a drunken driver, and after watching two people get sent to prison for drunken driving, hopefully they'll never think about it again.

"In a split second, everything can change," said Niko Drakopulos, a junior at Annapolis High School.

"I'm probably definitely going to start wearing a seat belt," added Ben...

This story has expired!
You can purchase the full text in our news archives.

YOUR COMMENTS

RULES OF PARTICIPATION

If you encounter other problems, please email ewiffin@capitalgazette.com and include your name, username, and any errors or messages that are displayed. The more information you can provide, the better able we will be to assist you.

In order to post or vote on a comment, you must be signed in with a hometownannapolis account.

Take a look at a summary of Commenting Guidelines.

Report Abuse or Vote In order to allow the user community the ability to collectively rank the value of comments posted on the Capital Gazette websites we have implemented a thumbs-up/down system. All logged-in users may participate by voting up/down each comment. If others vote on your comment, your individual score will go up/down depending on the votes. Initially, everyone starts with a score of zero, and must earn credits to have significant voting weight. Individuals with higher scores will have more voting weight. 0 3

Are you kidding me stanley davis? - 2009-11-13 14:34:38

That is the most ridiculously stupid thing I've ever heard of. Changing the bac legal level from .08 to .20!?! Obviously you have no knowledge of the consequences that drinking and driving has. .20 is like equivalent to have 5 or more beers. I don't care who you are and how much you weigh, because at .20 no one is OK to drive. You might want to rethink your comment!

unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?

Kel W - , - Karma: Neutral

make it legal...... - 2009-11-13 12:52:39

drinking and driving should be made legal under .20.....anyone caught driving with a BAC of .20 or higher should go to jail.....the government did this .08 to us..we need states rights........

unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?

stanley davis - mayo, md - Karma: Terrible