A number of organizations held the annual mock car crash today, to remind youth drivers about the possible results of dangerous driving behaviours.

The Manitoba Brain Injury Association puts the event on, in collaboration with Manitoba Public Insurance, Manitoba RCMP, the Winnipeg Police Service, the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service, STARS Air Ambulance and Chapel Lawn Funeral Homes.

This year’s mock crash detailed a driver who was texting when she struck a family with her car. 

“As novice drivers, youth are inexperienced and don’t understand consequences,” said RCMP Sargeant Larry Dalman. “They don’t realize these vehicles are weapons. They’re doing speeds they shouldn’t be doing, they’re using their phones and they’re doing things in the car that they shouldn’t be doing.”

Dalman says a lot of collisions involve young drivers and those crashes can often lead to life-altering injuries or fatalities.

“One person’s life taken away has a ripple effect,” said Dalman, adding oftentimes responding emergency crews also have to deal with trauma in these situations. “It has an effect on the schools the kids attended, their friends and family and everything they would have accomplished with their lives.”

Dalman says over 100 people a year in Manitoba are killed on roads due to dangerous driving. That number across the country is over 2,000 per year.

“The unfortunate thing is people don’t realize it can happen to them so they don’t pay attention to it,” he said. “They need to understand that just as they learned at home or at school there are consequences for poor actions. When you drive a car and make a mistake, there will be consequences.”

250 students from Maples Collegiate, Warren Collegiate, Tech Voc High School and Transcona High School attended this year’s event.

The event used actors to portray the driver and the family she struck and utilized real emergency responders.

It takes place every year at Chapel Lawn Funeral Homes near Headingly.