Greetings to whom this may concern, 

  My name is Madeline Zeiter and I was a part of a program that helped to reach the youth through demonstrations on drunk driving and the consequences. On April 12 of 2025, the Hercules Police Department and my fellow classmates all met up at our community center to begin filming. To briefly describe what is, It is a program that highlights the dangers of drunk/impaired driving with teens and adults. When we all met up, we began to brainstorm many ideas on how to address this topic in a way that would catch the audience's attention. The purpose of the video was to set the stage and give some back story as to what our school would witness on the big day of us showing the entire school the project we had been working on. 

  Through numerous takes and different ideas, we chose who would play the drunk driver and the victims. Through lots of consideration, I decided to take on the role of the drunk driver as I understood the impact I would have on my classmates. Throughout the filming I often found myself emotional as the police officers and directors would share their personal experiences with drunk driving. This drove me to give my very best performance. After having many 1 on 1 conversations with the police team, I understood what impaired driving really meant to me. It didn't only impact the drunk driver but it also impacted everyone on the road. No one truly understands the importance of impaired driving even if they read it in their drivers ED handbook, once it is in real life it's often too late to realize you should have listened. I believe texting can be just as bad as impaired driving. Not paying attention to what's going on on the road because you MUST respond to that one text can result in the death of not only you but someone else on the road. 

  Going back to those 1 on 1 conversations that I had with one of the police officers, I now understand how heartbreaking fatalities caused by impaired driving can be. One of the police officers shared that a week before filming, he had been at the scene of a very brutal car crash. A woman in her late 20s or early 30s was driving with her two children poorly secured in their booster seats. A detail that raised anxiety was that she was impaired and going well over the speed limit. While on the freeway, she collided with another car and as we can all guess everyone involved in that collision passed away. When the police arrived at the scene, a mental image shot... one that he could never erase. He then shared that he also had children around the ages of the ones involved in the accident. This absolutely crushed me as I knew that at that moment, he no longer saw some random children. He imagined those children were his own and how someone could be so selfish to harm innocent lives. 

 Therefore, I believe drivers education needs to have a stronger emphasis on the consequences of impaired driving. There needs to be more courses on how important it is to just wait to sober up or wait until you can safely park to respond to someone texting you. After being a part of the Every 15 Minute Program, it was not only effective when it came to how I drive but to my classmates habits when driving. Going back to the video we made to spread awareness, our school got to watch it. We had the firestation, air ambulances, and police department along with student volunteers like myself reenact a real life car crash on our football field. The emotions this brought to the entire school showed how intense these situations can actually be.

 My personal role in preventing impaired driving was playing the part of the drunk driver. In the video we filmed, it showed the steps an actual drunk driver that survived would have to take. I was sent to jail and had my fingerprints taken. The police station called my mother explaining what I had done. I had killed two young women in the crash while injuring three other people. I had to attend the funeral of the deceased and listened to what their mothers had said while sitting near the casket... sobbing at the thought of this being their traumatic reality.