A SusanvilleStuff Photofeature
by Marshel and Jeremy Couso
It looks like a lot of fun but, as some Lassen High School freshman driver’s education students found out last Thursday, it is harder than it appears to keep the California Highway Patrol’s SIDNE drunk-driving simulator in between the cones. The special high-tech vehicle helped student drivers and their passengers experience a simulation of what may happen if they attempt to operate a vehicle while impaired or distracted.
The SIDNE, a rather awkward acronym for Simulated Impaired DriviNg Experience, can travel at up to 8 miles an hour around the course with two occupants.
The obstacle course was set up on the track at Arnold Field, where drivers wove through a maze of cones representing family and friends. The students were asked to drive from one end of the course to the other without knocking over the cones, a difficult feat which most failed at.
How does the impairment simulator work? At first students are in full control of the special go-cart – then CHP Officer Vince Roeber, the SIDNE specialist who traveled from Mariposa for the Lassen High sessions, goes to work. By remote control he activates the vehicle’s ‘impaired mode’ and suddenly drivers experience a slight delay in the braking, steering and acceleration.
These delays, while only minor, typically result in the driver losing control of the vehicle and a realization of how an instant of cell phone distraction or driving under the influence of alcohol and other drugs can lead to tragic consequences.
Officer Roeber from Mariposa was joined during the day-long training by Susanville CHP Sergeant Brent Townsend and Public Information Officer Kristen Wilburn.
