The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety released the results from its most recent distracted driving study and the results are troubling. Quantifying the extent of the distracted driving problem has been difficult. There is no blood test for distracted driving and many folks just don’t admit they were distracted at the time of a crash.
By Joel Feldman: April is National Distracted Driving Awareness month and I will be participating in events next week as Pennsylvania and Delaware join other states in announcing the adoption of distracted driving awareness initiatives for April. I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to personally speak with more than 10,000 teens and adults over the last year as part of The Casey Feldman Foundation’s EndDD.org program.
“I wasn’t texting, I wasn’t using my cell phone, but I still killed someone”, says 17 year old Kate McGuire in the new PSA video produced by Casey’s father, Joel Feldman, now incorporated into the EndDD distracted driving presentation. This is one of the first distracted driving videos which features both the driver and the victim’s family. Kate, a senior in high school, describes how her selfish act killed a 61 year old man who was about to become a grandfather for the first time. Emily, the daughter of the man who was killed talks about how this senseless and preventable crash has affected her and her family.
Two years ago, AT & T began the “Texting Can Wait” campaign to alert young drivers to the dangers of texting and driving. These power commercials feature individuals whose lives were changed as a result of sending a text message, instead of paying attention to the road.
Nearly 200 adolescents between 15-17 in six high schools across America were asked about their perceptions of a “good driver” and a “safe driver” in a recently published study in Injury Prevention
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety developed a creative way to involve teens with their distracted driving video contest. The first-place winner Alex Emmons, produced a compelling 30 second video that hits home with respect to the dangers presented by being distracted while texting. See how Alex used the football field to make his point
A Project of The Casey Feldman Foundation
