At the fair: Goggles simulate drunkenness

The Wahkiakum County Sheriff's Department wants fairgoers to try out their “Beer Goggles” this year at the county fair. The goggles simulate driving under the influence and fairgoers will have an unusual challenge when they try on the goggles and then get behind the wheel to drive a go-cart.

It's all part of their Fatal Vision program to let people instantly experience driving drunk, while being sober.

“I know it sounds funny,” said Undersheriff Jon Dearmore, “but once people put these things on they realize why it’s dangerous to climb behind the wheel and drive.”

The Fatal Vision Awareness program is about 15 years old and consists of goggles that look similar to the safety goggles found in wood or metal shops.

The goggles simulate drunkenness very effectively. They distort vision and cause the brain to mimic behaviors of a person under the influence of alcohol or drugs. When this reporter tried on the level-1 goggles and took the Sheriff’s sobriety test he failed miserably and almost fell over.

Dearmore said the goggles simulate five different levels of blood alcohol intoxication and emulate blood alcohol levels from 0.08 to 2.0. They actually produce the different stages of drunkenness a person goes through as their blood becomes saturated with alcohol.

“What we’re planning on doing this year at the fair,” said Dearmore, “is we are going to let licensed drivers put on the Fatal Vision goggles and then get behind the wheel of our go-cart and try to drive a slalom course that will be about 80-feet long.”

The sheriff’s department bought the go-cart as an addition to their Fatal Vision program. Dearmore said he found, and applied for the grant to buy the cart because he believes it adds realism to the program, and it adds to the public’s understanding of how dangerous it is to get behind the wheel and drive after spending a few hours at the bar.

The go-cart is equipped with a radio controlled kill switch should the driver lose control or panic while driving the slalom course. Dearmore said anyone who tries out the Fatal Vision goggles and go-cart combination will remember the experience, and how alcohol distorts vision, impairs equilibrium and slows down reaction time.

“It’s supposed to be educational, and it is,” said Dearmore, “but until now, for safety reasons, the test was always performed without the actual driving component.”

With the addition of the go-cart perspective, “drunk drivers” will first be asked take the sheriff department’s modified field sobriety test to demonstrate how a normal person reacts to simple things like walking a straight line, catching a ball and touching their nose.

Dearmore said everyone does exceedingly well on the first test, “Then we put the goggles on and the first thing out of everyone’s mouth is ‘Whoa!’," he said.

The test demonstrates how hard it is to put on the brake, apply gas and steer around obstacles when you’re under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

“Through the years of using these Fatal Vision demonstrations we’ve shown people how easy it is to become impaired,” said Dearmore, “but now we're going to put them behind the wheel and let them see for themselves.”

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) reports that statistically a drunk driver kills someone every 45 minutes in America. Last year, over 11,000 people were killed in motorcycle, car and truck accidents involving alcohol and/or drugs.