The parking lot behind the Macy's store at Valley View Mall looked a little bit like a traffic safety carnival Saturday.

You could get a car seat installed, drive a drunken driving simulator that looked like a golf cart, watch an air bag get shot up in the air or hang out with firefighters idling near a fire truck. Or at least you could until the truck sped away, lights and sirens blaring.

Through it all strolled Vince and Larry, a crash-test dummy duo in masks, known in real life as Virginia Department of Transportation traffic engineers Danny Cruff and Mike Sharkady.

"The hope is we get some teens here with their parents and talk about crashes, why they occur and why they occur with teens," said Roanoke County police Sgt. Tim Wyatt, who helped organize the Blue Ridge Transportation Safety Board's traffic safety day, an event presented by officers from all over the area.

Most crashes involving teenagers can be boiled down to three basic causes, he said: driver inexperience, speed and distractions.

More than half the teenagers who die in traffic crashes in Virginia die because they take a turn too fast, drive off the road and roll over, he said.

"Every curve has a critical speed and that's a speed that no matter what car you're driving you will go off the road," Wyatt said. "Just like NASCAR, more than 190 in the curve and you're going in a wall."

What's more, half of all teen drivers will be involved in some sort of crash, from minor fender-benders to fatal crashes, within the first two months of getting their license, he said. Last year, 130 of the 1,279 traffic fatalities in Virginia were younger than 20, according to Virginia State Police statistics.

To bring the point home, police officers brought a smashed-up red sport utility vehicle that had rolled over and gave it pride of place at the event.

Not far away, Hunter Manspile, 16, tried to walk straight along the painted line between parking spaces while wearing goggles that simulate drunkenness.

"I have pretty good balance," said the starting center for the Northside High School Vikings, but with the glasses he looked more like a seasick sailor.

"You think you're looking at the line but you're looking up," he said.

Jim Mone, a Roanoke firefighter, didn't have much luck walking the line either.

"It kind of feels like you're walking on the side of a hill," he said. "I just didn't want to fall and make a fool of myself."