WEST WARWICK — At around this time, for the last four years, a grim reminder has sprouted on the lawns of high schools throughout Rhode Island.

Mangled cars serve as a visual cue to encourage students to not drink and drive during the high school prom season.

But it may take more than the sight of a wrecked vehicle to keep kids from driving drunk, and some say that youngsters may have become desensitized to the grisly prompt.

“I’m sure it does something for someone,” said West Warwick High School senior Kyla Lemoi, 18. “But there will be people who will be like, ‘Whatever, it won’t happen to me.’ ”

That’s why, in an era when alcohol is readily available and students are beginning to experiment at a younger age, school departments have to beef up their efforts to spread the anti-alcohol message and rely on a more holistic approach to educating students, said Robert Houghtaling, East Greenwich’s coordinator of anti-substance abuse programs.

“If you don’t reinforce the message year round, to all of a sudden expect people to change their behavior for one night is not realistic,” Houghtaling said. “You have to have strong rules, community expectations and lots of people on board to support kids doing the right things. With all those things working in conjunction, hopefully we can support kids and help them get through just being regular teens.”

Post-prom parties, awareness rallies and educational programs have become commonplace in high schools today.

Tomorrow, West Warwick seniors will hear a presentation from Lori Nunes, whose son, Justin, was killed in a drunken-driving accident.

And a smashed-up silver Ford Taurus was placed in a corner of the school parking lot Tuesday evening, as students prepare for the senior prom tomorrow night. Sometimes, drastic statements like that are necessary, said Houghtaling.

“They’re the exclamation mark on our efforts,” he said. “In a lot of ways, it stands for something. The students take it seriously as a reminder of the negative consequences.”

In some areas, the cars serve as a visual memorial to students who died in drunken-driving accidents, or were killed by impaired drivers. East Greenwich tennis phenom Todd Marsilli, 13, was struck and killed by an intoxicated driver in 1983. Timothy Lyons, 15, of East Greenwich,, was killed by a drunken driver on St. Patrick’s Day in 1995 as he walked along Middle Road.

In West Warwick, the exclamation point screams even louder as students are still wrestling with the loss of student in a drunken-driving accident.

In 2003, Tori Andreozzi was struck and critically injured by a drunken driver as she was walking home from Deering Middle School. The driver, Marilyn D. Brownell of West Warwick, pled no contest to a series of charges, including drunken driving.

Andreozzi, who now uses a wheelchair, early this month came to West Warwick High School to address junior-prom attendees about the dangers of drinking and driving. That evening, Andreozzi, attended the prom with her former classmates.

In March, Darien Plass, 14, a student at West Warwick High School, crashed his mother’s Ford minivan into a utility pole near their Main Street home, and was pronounced dead at Kent Hospital. Friends said that Plass had been drinking. A local man, Mark Woods, 23, was later charged with procuring and/or purchasing alcohol for a minor and with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He is scheduled to go to trial on June 20.

“It makes it real,” said 14-year-old Kelsey Sousa, a freshman at West Warwick High School, who knew Darien Plass. “It’s sad to see something like that. It makes me realize what can happen when you don’t make smart decisions.”

At least on one level, the efforts seem to be working, said Charles St. Martin, spokesperson from the state Department of Transportation.

“The good news is that we haven’t had any fatal accidents on a prom night in recent memory,” said St. Martin. “But it goes without saying that we can never let up on the message to either have someone designated to drive, or for all those under the drinking age not to drink at all.”

The DOT doesn’t keep alcohol-specific data for motor vehicle accidents involving minors, St. Martin said. However, between 2001 and 2005, 18 fatal accidents have occurred during the months of May and June. There were 183 crashes related to impaired driving between May and June 2004, and 167 crashes between the same periods in 2005. In total, 9,223 accidents involved drivers under the age of 20 in 2004, and 8,644 were involved in 2005.

For years, the national organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving has worked to promote awareness of the problem. It has often partnered with schools looking for crashed cars to display during prom weeks, said Gabrielle M. Abbate, executive director of MADD’s Rhode Island chapter. (That chore increasingly is falling to schools’ resource police officers.)

The organization reinforces that effort with THINK.Prom — a teen-driven program in which students pledge not to drink and drive on prom night.

“People learn differently and are aware of different things,” said Abbate. “Some people aren’t going to read the statistics, but if you create that [wreck] visual, they’ll see what the outcome of drunk driving will be.”

At West Warwick High yesterday, members of the school’s chapter of SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) milled around the wrecked Taurus in the parking lot.

A spidery crack in the windshield suggested it had been struck by the driver’s head. The engine compartment was bashed in, the hood crumpled.

“I usually get a car that’s more smashed up, but … I figured this one would be okay,” said Officer Jason Senerchia, a school resource officer.

Still, the mangled car seemed to have the desired effect.

Jessica Laiter looked at it in silence for a bit. “I’ve never been this close to it before,” she said. “I only saw it from the bus. It still means the same thing, but it brings it into perspective: there was someone in this car.”

tbuford@projo.com