Gardendale High School student Hali Busby drove her first lap through a traffic cone course at the GHS parking lot flawlessly. Her second lap didn’t go so well; she ran over a plastic dog as she scrambled to find the correct song on an iPod.

It might sound like a strange scenario, but it’s really just the new Jefferson County teen driving program. The program focuses on simulating distracted driving, like texting, using a radio or mp3 player and putting on makeup.

“If you start with good habits at an early age, they tend to stay with you longer in life,” said Barry Brake, a drivers’ education teacher at GHS. He said he encouraged all of his students to take the course over the summer.

“To a certain degree, there’s more distraction now because there’s more technology. But imagine a kid that doesn’t have all that in his car. He can still be distracted; he can let his mind wander. The danger is in not paying attention to what you’re doing.”

The program uses two vehicles; one is a go-kart that simulates impaired driving by robbing control of the vehicle from the driver when a remote control button is pressed.

The second vehicle is much larger, and is used to simulate distracted driving. A Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office deputy rides along in the other car and tells the student driver to do distracting things like making text messages or finding a tube of lipstick in the floorboard while driving. The students drive one lap unimpaired or undistracted, then face the challenges on their second lap through the obstacle course.

“I was paying a lot of attention the first time. But the second time through, I didn’t even glance at the road. I was just trying to get everything done that he told me to do,” said Autumn Thompson, one of the program’s students. She said texting and looking for makeup were the hardest challenges.

Brake said driving the course is meant to be fun, but that the officers also talk seriously with the students after they finish about how dangerous the distractions would be in a real life situation.

“There’s a lot of ‘what-ifs.’ Like, ‘what if that was really a child that stepped out in front of you?,’” he said. “I hope they never get in a situation where they have to deal with that.”

Sheriff Mike Hale said the program is one-of-a-kind. There are other distraction and impairment simulation vehicles, but no other program combines both of them.

The program started as a collaboration between the Jefferson County Board of Education and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. The school board bought the equipment for around $28,000 and the deputies are providing the labor. The program will travel to 13 high schools over the summer.