Media Advisory - Safe Crossing Week 2009 - Teaching Safety for Life

TORONTO , Oct. 28 /CNW/ - On November 1 , Safe Kids Canada and CN will launch Safe Crossing Week 2009, a national educational campaign focused on keeping Canadian children safe at railway crossings and around trains.

Education plays a vital role in the prevention of injury and death at railway crossings and from trespassing on railway property. There were 287 railway crossing and trespassing accidents in 2008, resulting in 56 serious injuries and 73 fatalities.

This year, tens of thousands of students in elementary schools across Canada and the United States will learn about safety at railway crossings in their classrooms from teachers and CN employee volunteers. CN Police will conduct trackside classrooms and school assemblies, and leading children's hospitals will participate, making it the largest and most wide-spread Safe Crossing Week since its commencement in 2005.

Safe Crossing Week 2009's theme, Teaching Safety for Life, recognizes that children who learn about railway crossing safety early in life acquire the tools to protect them for a lifetime.

Safe Kids Canada and CN invite media to help alert Canadians to the importance of teaching children safety rules for crossing train tracks and about the dangers of trespassing by reporting on Safe Crossing Week from November 1 - 7, 2009.

A news release will be distributed on this newswire on Monday, November 2, 2009 at 7 a.m. (ET )

For further information: Media contacts: Lisa Lipkin, Manager, Communications and Marketing, Safe Kids Canada, [phone], [email protected]; Bryan Tucker, Senior Manager, Public Affairs and Media Relations, CN, [phone], [email protected]