Joel Feldman Participates in Distracted Driving Program at Lehigh Valley Hospital

Joel and Casey in Ft. Lauderdale in Jan. 2009 on a family vacation

Joel Feldman, Casey’s father, participated in a distracted driving program with emergency room physicians at Lehigh Valley Hospital on March 15, 2011. Joel talked about his family’s loss and showed the three minute video made about Casey for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s “Faces of Distracted Driving” website.

The two hour presentation by three emergency room physicians and hospital staff was part of a distracted driving program launched in October by the Lehigh Valley Health Network and has been taken to over a dozen Lehigh Valley area high schools. According to the physicians, Gavin Barr, Robert Barraco and Bryan Kane,  15% of driving is distracted driving and 80% of traffic accidents occur within three seconds of some kind of distraction.

Joe Feldman stated, “ With the reception that I received after the presentation from parents and teenagers and the hundreds of emails that have been pouring in since the video was released, it is apparent that the Casey video has had a positive impact on the way that people are driving and that lives are being saved. In fact, I just now received an email from a woman who said that she never  thought about the fact that even eating in her car could be a distraction, and admitted that each and every day she eats in her car while driving her son to school. This mother said simply that since watching the video, I will never eat while driving again.”

Watch the TV news clip.  Read the article from the Lehigh Valley newspapers. View the 3 minute U.S. DOT video here.