Opinion: Distracted driving simulators provide students virtual learning experiences for safe driving

Last week, the Associated Press announced that Drive Smart Virginia invested in distracted driving simulators as a part of its program to educate Virginia high school students. Drive Smart Virginia is a nonprofit organization that promotes traffic safety awareness through its educational outreach programs.

Virginia’s investment opens the door for a new in-class learning experience. The simulators are a good investment because they teach youth about traffic safety by letting them see what could happen when they become distracted while driving.

In a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report, nearly 400,000 people in 2015 were injured in distracted driving accidents. And 9 percent of them were 15 to 19 year olds.

Since technology is already part of our lives, we need to teach young drivers when and when not to use it.

In a CivicScience survey, 76 percent of 13 to 24 year olds said they are addicted to their smartphones and portable tech devices.

Our lives revolve around technology. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in their study of Motor Vehicle Safety, 42 percent of high school students report sending a text or email while driving. In 2015, 3,477 people were killed in an accident involving distracted driving. That is approximately nine deaths per day.

On the Drive Smart Virginia website, its distracted driving simulator funded by State Farm Insurance works with goggles that “simulate various roadway situations.” In the simulation, teens are asked to send and read texts and take photos on their phones.

In my years of learning in high school and college, I have realized that learning from muscle memory and interaction worked more effectively than simply reading something and memorizing it for a short period of time.

The distracted driver simulator brings interaction into the classroom to instill the importance of caution on the road. Virginia’s high school students can now virtually experience what happens when they choose their cell phones over the road.

TechWebSpace reported that virtual reality is another form of education through experience. By experiencing simulation of real-life scenarios such as distracted driving, virtual reality provides practice based on the user’s interaction with the situation through the goggles.

Drive Smart Virginia’s investment opens the door to enter and join the future of education through virtual reality. By incorporating interaction and practice through simulation, Virginia promotes the bigger picture of cautioning our teens about what is most important while driving.

Their lives.