National Save-A-Life tour makes and impact Published Oct. 9, 2008 By Danielle Gregory Tinker Public Affairs TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla., -- The National Save-A-Life Tour recently visited Tinker in hopes of bringing more awareness of drinking and driving to base members. The tour is designed as a new shocking approach to drinking and driving awareness with a video of true events, personal stories of the loss of loved ones along with a simulation experience. The simulator showed sober participants the effects alcohol has on driving. A majority of drivers who take on the simulator have accidents caused by narrowing of focus and have trouble concentrating on what is directly in front of them, ignoring dangers around them. "Drinking and Driving is unacceptable. Unfortunately, people every day tend to make the wrong decision and those decisions end up having lifelong impacts that affect them or others. Each decision has a consequence," said Col. Mona Lisa Tucker, 72nd Air Base Wing vice commander. "As we look at our DUI numbers for TAFB, it's ridiculous. One is too many. Each one of you is vital. To lose one of you out of our ranks is not something any of us would like to see happen." Colonel Tucker said she's never wanted to go knock on someone's door to tell them their loved one was dead because they've done something irresponsible. After Colonel Tucker's words, the Save-A-Life crew turned on the video for the crowd. Bryan Moffatt explained that it would be very graphic and hard to watch for some. When the video was completed, the hangar was quiet after having seen a very true experience of drinking and driving accidents as well as participants and family reactions to those accidents. "One beer is enough to change your vision up to ten percent. Most would consider weaving or swerving as the big killer of drinking and driving, however it is only responsible for 15 percent of alcohol related accidents, said Mr. Moffatt. "Seventy-five percent are caused by tunnel vision." He explained that every single drunk driver gets behind the wheel knowing what they are doing. They know it's wrong to drink and drive but they have the courage to do it because they are under the influence and have done it before and nothing has ever happened. They feel invincible. He also said that someone will drive drunk many times before anything happens. "Most people say that they are more worried about getting pulled over and going to jail than they are killing someone. Not only is killing someone way worse than getting a DUI, but you just murdered someone. Not only is that on your mind for the rest of your life, most drunk drivers survive because they can see the accident coming, but its ridiculously expensive and you'll probably be in jail the rest of your life," said Mr. Moffatt. Mr. Moffatt pointed out that a few months ago, after several years of research, college professors found that alcohol interferes with the driver's brain processing of the color red. So it is harder for drivers to notice red signs or lights. He then went on to tell the attendees his story of how he got into the Save-A-Life program. The summer after his senior year he and his friends partied a lot, something they had done since their sophomore year. On a particular day, they got hungry and sent someone to grab some food. "I didn't want to go so I handed my best friend Dave the keys, knowing he'd been drinking all day," said Mr. Moffatt. "As Dave left, I told him to drive safe but hurry up." A few hours later, one of their sober friends came through and pointed out that Dave had been gone far too long. They couldn't reach him by phone and decided to go look for him. Almost to the food destination, the guys saw flashing lights and a road crew. The lights led to a wreck. The wreck was their friend. By the time they found the wreck, law enforcement had already started clean up. His friend Dave that he had given the keys to was transported to the hospital in a coma and died two weeks later. "That was single-handedly one of the worst days of my life. I was responsible for Dave's death. I have to live with that for the rest of my life," said Mr Moffatt. "Hopefully I can convince you guys to be more responsible and make better decisions for you, your friends and your family."