A campaign focusing on showing the dangers of texting and driving is debuting a simulator in St. Joseph Saturday. 

Sgt. Larry Stobbs with the St. Joseph Police Department said the “It Only Takes One” campaign has a driving simulator where kids can try to drive distracted or it simulates being impaired. 

“Primarily our focus today is to get the younger folks to understand it’s not safe to text and drive,” Stobbs said. “It’s just like driving a car, it’s got the TV screens and it puts them through different driving scenarios and they can see (what happens) without getting into a car crash.” 

Getting the driving simulator out to its first event was an effort between many organizations including the police department, the Missouri Department of Transportation, the city of St. Joseph and the St. Joseph Youth Alliance. Stobbs said the “It Only Takes One” campaign is statewide. 

“One text, one drink, one glance, that one distraction, it’s one fatal moment,” Stobbs said. “So that one text could cost you your life and we’re really trying to prevent people from being that statistic or losing their life over something as stupid as sending a text that probably doesn’t amount to anything and lose their life over it. So that’s kind of our focus.” 

The driving simulator is in the parking lot at the North Shoppes from noon until 2 p.m. Saturday, July 23.