BREWER — The extended period of silence that followed Friday’s world premiere of “One for Over the Line” was a clear indication that the video had its intended effect.

The 20-minute video portrays the tragic consequences for young people who fail to avoid the lethal combination of drinking and driving. But unlike the commercially produced films the state’s driver’s education instructors have had to rely on, “One for Over the Line” features familiar faces and local places.

Filmed and edited by Bangor’s WABI-TV, Channel 5, which put up half of the project’s $10,000 production budget, the video is fast-paced, taking viewers quickly through a series of events that begins with a beer party and progresses to the pain and anguish caused by one drunken driver.

Along the way there’s a head-on collision that claims the lives of a teen-ager and a woman out with her husband on his birthday. There are rescue workers’ frantic efforts to save the injured, and police having to tell parents that their child is dead. Emergency room doctors and nurses stuggle to save a teen with a massive head injury and tell a man who just lost his wife that he also has lost the ability to walk.

It doesn’t end there. The tape also chronicles some of the outcomes for the drunken driver, from the fingerprinting and mug shot, and a 12-year jail sentence, to the metallic clang of a jail cell door as it slams shut.

“As you look at this, aren’t you glad that it’s staged?” asked Penobscot County Chief Deputy Glenn Ross, after the screening at Jeff’s Convention Center. Ross is one of several area law enforcement officials who helped make the video possible.

The drama plays itself out all too often in real life.

According to national statistics, more than 5,000 teen-agers of driving age die in motor vehicle crashes each year, more than from cancer and all other diseases combined.

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for Mainers age 15 to 24, according to statistics provided by Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky in his address to driver’s education instructors from throughout Maine gathered in Brewer for a conference.

Nearly one young driver is killed, and more than 60 are injured each week in Maine, Gwadosky said.

From 1995 to 1996, arrests for operating under the influence increased 21 percent for the 15 to 24 age group and grew 11 percent overall in Maine. Among 17-year-olds, OUI arrests increased 67.5 percent in that period.

Teens are inexperienced at both drinking and driving, so small amounts of alcohol can have tragic effects, suggests the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Fueled by donations from throughout the region, the video is the culmination of a communitywide effort led by Sally Holland, the Glenburn driver’s education instructor who conceived the idea after discovering a lack of realistic films about teen drinking and driving for her school, Drivers Edge.

The plan is to distribute 200 copies of the video to Maine schools, law enforcement agencies and others who grapple with the drinking and driving issue.

Holland’s driver’s ed colleagues and students agreed that until now, all that was available were stale, commercially produced films with actors few students identify with.

“They are contrived and kids know it,” said Doug Welsh, who teaches driver’s ed and business at Bonny Eagle High School in Standish.”This is the real deal. This is down-home Maine.

“It’s a tremendous video,” Welsh said. “It had an emotional impact on me. I think it certainly will have an impact on [young drivers]. Kids feel they’re invincible.”

Invited to the premiere were students from John Bapst Memorial High School who landed the starring roles during an audition that drew more than 30 hopefuls, according to drama coach Ryan Hews.