February 18, 2025, Durham, NC – iRT is dedicated to preventing distracted and impaired driving and helping drivers, prevention professionals, and community members protect themselves and others on the road. Plan My Ride is iRT’s interactive, multimedia, eLearning program developed with and for young drivers to teach safe driving skills to prevent distracted and impaired driving. Unlike other safe driving educational programs, Plan My Ride uses a science-backed and theory-driven approach to change behavior by teaching concrete, practical strategies to avoid impaired and distracted driving, and providing opportunities for young drivers to practice the skills they have learned in 360-degree virtual scenarios. The program is accessible on mobile devices and computers to meet teens where they are.
This article is the tenth in a series of articles describing how each lesson and 360-degree virtual reality scenario of the Plan My Ride program was strategically designed to help young drivers learn important information and strategies to prevent distracted and impaired driving.
Plan My Ride’s Virtual Reality Scenarios
Following their completion of the initial seven lessons of the Plan My Ride program, young drivers explore three interactive, 360-degree, virtual reality (VR) scenarios. The VR scenarios function as virtual role-play activities that help young drivers practice using the knowledge and skills they have learned throughout the lessons to improve their learning outcomes and become more confident in their decision-making skills for safe driving. Plan My Ride utilizes VR to allow young drivers to practice making decisions in a virtual environment that is realistic and immersive as well as safe and less intimidating than live, in-person role-play. Plan My Ride’s VR scenarios can be explored with a VR headset or on a computer or mobile device.
Scenario 3: To ride or not to ride?
The third VR scenario allows young drivers to role-play making decisions as their friends, who show signs of impairment, try to convince them to ride to a party with them. The young driver is presented with a series of decision points to determine if the driver they are considering riding with is impaired and how they want to proceed with getting to the party, including asking if the driver is impaired before getting in the car and refusing the ride. Selecting to ride with the impaired driver results in feedback, and the learner must try again. Refusing the ride allows the learner to arrive at the party where they learn that the driver was pulled over for driving while impaired which reinforces negative consequences of riding with an impaired driver.
If you are interested in offering the Plan My Ride program to young drivers to prevent impaired and distracted driving, visit https://planmyride.net/ to learn more and get started.