Make rail part of your National Road Safety Week May 13-19

It’s National Road Safety Week —what better time to share not only your road safety knowledge but also your rail safety knowledge with a young or new driver in your household. A big focus of National Road Safety Week is educating young drivers about the rules and, of course, dangers of getting behind the wheel. According to stats published by the Canada Safety Council, and provided by Transport Canada, “Young driver and passenger fatalities continue to be very noticeable in motor vehicle collision statistics. Nearly 23 per cent of motor vehicle fatalities were 15 to 24 year olds in 2010, even though this age group makes up only 13 per cent of the Canadian population.”

Rail safety resources for new drivers

How can we have an impact on that 23 per cent of 15-24 year olds? Operation Lifesaver continually strives to increase safety awareness with our interactive and free rail safety resources available to young and new drivers.
  • The first is our interactive driver’s training site, traintodrive.net, specifically designed for newly licensed and professional drivers. This site consists of engaging courses that have been developed to help train the various skill levels of drivers on the best way to approach highway-railway crossings.
  • Next is our fun driver’s quiz (PDF). This resource helps parents take a quick pulse check on just how much their teen knows in regards to rail safety when they get behind the wheel.
  • If you find encouraging your teens to participate in these activities is tricky, why not make it a family affair? Take a spin at the rail safety quiz. This is a great tool to test the rail safety skill set of all members of the family.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="385"] Photo credit: Ottawa Citizen[/caption]

Rail safety reality check

Operation Lifesaver doesn’t stop at providing a substantial amount of hands-on, downloadable and free resources—we also speak to real people about the devastation caused by a railway related incident. Consider this:
  • Nothing drives home the rail safety message better than the emotional impact of a family member recounting an incident, or a hard-hitting rail safety message shared by someone we admire. Check out the powerful media gallery on our website. If you can only get the attention of your distracted teen for a minute—make it count.
The more we bring the topic of rail safety to the table, the more the chances of reducing railway incidents and fatalities will increase. We must all do our part to drive home the life-long and extremely important message of rail safety. Take some time during National Road Safety Week to perform a quick lifesaving pulse check on not only the rules of the road but also rail safety.

Remember to ALWAYS: Look! Listen! Live!