About 20% of motor-vehicle-related deaths involve at least one of the drivers involved being under the influence of drugs other than alcohol. For Ford, that number is far too high.

In an innovative way for educating the youth about the dangers of drug use and driving, Ford hired scientists from the Meyer-Hentschel Institute in Germany to develop a suit that would allow one to experience the effects of drugs such as marijuana, heroin, ecstasy, and cocaine while driving. The suit features a combination of headphones that play confusing and distracting background noise, vision-impairment glasses, neck and elbow bandages to restrict normal movement, and a wrist weight to slow reaction time. These devices attempt to simulate the delayed and distracted motions that the body goes through when under the influence of these substances.

The new Drugged Driving Suit will be incorporated into Ford Driving Skills for Life, the award-winning young driver program that has provided training to more than 500,000 people around the world through hands-on and online tuition since its inception 11 years ago.

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