Students at Northern Collegiate are getting a new, state-of-the-art driving simulator thanks to an $80,000 donation from Shell Canada.
It puts students in the seat of a virtual car, with lessons including the perils of distracted driving, in a safe environment.
Shell spokesman Randy Provencal says Northern is the first high school in Canada to get one.
It's equipped with three large screens on the front, two screens in the rear, turn signals, and gear shifters.
He says many students aren't exposed to formal driver training.
"We have the opportunity to improve road safety which is very important to Shell," says Provencal. "We want to be able to get as many students exposed to this as possible and learn some valuable driving lessons that will hopefully make them better drivers and it may even save lives in the end."
Lambton Kent District School Board Secondary School Superintendent Mark Sherman says it will be a great benefit for students. He says 1,200 students will benefit in the early going before expanding.
"Our senior transportation classes seem to be a natural first start," says Sherman. "They do things like vehicle maintenance , vehicle awareness and so on. Certainly, driving awareness is a natural extension of that. It will be installed in May, and we'll do some trial driving with it before the end of the school year. We'll start building it into course work, and we'll develop some lesson structures where we can expand it out to other students in the school, and eventually to other high schools in the district."
The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute says drivers who text message behind the wheel are 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash, or near crash.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 84% of distracted driving fatalities in the U.S. were tied to driver carelessness or inattentiveness.
Distracted driving is a factor in about four million crashes in North America each year.