CONNORVILLE — Buckeye Local High School students will learn the effects of driving under the influence and more with an upcoming visit from UNITE’s Arrive Alive Tour.

The national program will stop by the school from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday with officials speaking to youth and offering a chance to utilize simulators that mimic driving while intoxicated or distracted. Students in ninth through 12th grades will take part in the activity, which will be held in the athletic wing, and the visit is sponsored by Family Recovery Center of Steubenville and Ohio State Highway Patrol Steubenville Post 41. Officials said the purpose is to share lessons about making good choices.

“They will experience what it’s like to do drunk or drugged driving and texting and driving,” said Doug Murray, prevention specialist with the Family Recovery Center. “It shows how just a few bad choices you make before getting behind the wheel can affect you and what could happen if you look at a phone for just a couple of seconds.”

He added that the tour has been held for the past six years and officials believe it is important to conduct programs during prom season.

“We try to do four schools and this year booked Buckeye Local and Steubenville Catholic Central,” Murray said. “It all falls within both weeks of prom. The equipment simulates making bad decisions and what can possibly happen as a result.”

According to a media statement from UNITE, the Arrive Alive Tour is the nation’s No. 1 ranked drunk and distracted driving awareness event and also includes the first-and-only marijuana driving simulator in the country. It features a high-tech, state-of-the-art simulator which lends realism to driving while distracted, drunk or drugged in a fully functioning vehicle without moving or being intoxicated. Officials stated the simulator allows participants to experience the real-life dangers without the real-life consequences.

With prom and graduation approaching, they said it is a crucial time to educate teens since the fatal crash rate for them is three times greater than for drivers age 20 and over, and driver distraction is responsible for more than 58 percent of teen crashes. Additionally, young drivers between the ages of 16 and 20 are 17 times more likely to die in a crash when they have a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent than when they have not been drinking.

The event is sponsored by Family Recovery Center via a Drug Free Communities Grant in partnership with the OSHP.