Distracted Driving Presentations for Schools Across North America

To coincide with April’s National Distracted Driving Awareness Month more than 800 judges and lawyers have agreed to give presentations to high school students without charge. This is a North American campaign and more than 30,000 students in all 50 states and most of the provinces in Canada will attend presentations. The effort is being coordinated through the Casey Feldman Memorial Foundation, EndDD.org and 60forsafety. Casey Feldman was killed by a distracted driver in July of 2009. Joel Feldman, Casey’s father , wanted to reach as many students as possible to help them make safer decisions so they could lead full and productive lives.

Assisting in preparation of the presentation was Lela Jacobsohn, PhD , from Children’s Hospital’s Injury Research and Prevention Center(CIRP) in Philadelphia. CIRP is nationally recognized as a leader in safety research and teen messaging. The presentation is interactive, seeks the students help in solving what is clearly not just a teen problem, uses videos and hi quality graphics as well as role play to collaboratively reach decisions about being safer while a passenger or a driver. One of the videos used is the 3 minute PSA developed by the Feldman family for the US Department of Transportation website “Faces of Distracted Driving” which can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPrZCCjrFLs

There are still dates available for schools to request presentations. Additional information can be obtained at http://www.enddd.org.