Prom season can be deadly

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Prom season is here, and it typically touches off spikes in alcohol-related traffic accidents involving young people.

Year-round, the number of 15- to 20-year-old drivers who had blood-alcohol concentrations of .01 or higher when involved in fatal crashes dropped 37 percent from 2000 to 2009, but alcohol-fueled road accidents remain the leading cause of death in that age range, according to national data.

Research shows 70 percent of high school juniors and seniors expect their peers to drink and drive on prom night.

Prom season remains a fragile time, especially since it signals the start of “senior slump.” It’s the time of year when departing high schoolers start to feel liberated from school and home as they wind down from academics and the pressures of the college application mill and head into graduation and summer party mode.

At prom, schools rely on random breath alcohol testing, lockdowns of hotel and school venues (once you’re out, you’re out), bloody mock DUI scenes and even drug-sniffing dogs to ensure that dances and other chaperoned events are safe.

But what about unsupervised after-parties that leave underage drinkers hung over and hotel rooms strewn with empty liquor bottles the next morning? Or parties at people’s homes?

“Most parents do not keep parties dry. More often than not, I’ve run into ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situations, where parents stay upstairs, out of the fray,” said John G. Duffy, a clinical psychologist who has worked with high schoolers in the Chicago area.

The problem, for parents and their kids, runs deeper than just one night, Duffy said.

“My teenage clients typically resent these restrictions, feeling that they are not being treated as young adults, but more like children,” he said. “Many think that school administrations should accept the fact that teens will be drinking on prom nights. And therein lies the issue.”

Adrian Lopez of the Florida-based Drug Free Youth in Town, which works with high schools to deter drinking, including staging mock crashes, said the group emphasizes to the students: “Don’t let prom be your last dance.”

The group mails postcards to parents urging them to do commonsense things like staying connected with their kids throughout prom night, knowing whom they’re with and staying up until their kids get home. AP