AUBURN — With the mission of getting promgoers home safe, Edward Little High School students and the Auburn Police Department will stage a mock fatal accident in the school’s parking lot Tuesday morning.

Featuring students as actors in the ‘fatal crash scene,’ the performance will be “as realistic as possible,” Auburn police Chief Phil Crowell said in a press release distributed Monday afternoon. “It’s shocking when you see the crashed vehicle; it certainly hits home for the students,” he said. “This shows [them] that their community supports them being safe.”

“We want them to open their eyes to the consequences — we need them to understand that drinking and driving just isn’t worth it,” School Resource Officer Eric Bell said. Bell hopes that, having witnessed such a ‘tragedy,’ promgoers will think twice before they drink and drive. The decision could save their lives, he said.

Car crashes are the leading cause of death for teens, according to a 2009 study by the National Highway Traffic Study Administration. One in three of those deaths is alcohol related.