Operation Lifesaver: Education’s Role in Highway-Rail Safety

1. Operation Lifesaver: Education’s Role in Highway-Rail Safety Helen M. Sramek, OLI 2008 MidStates Highway-Rail Safety Meeting Grapevine, Texas, May 20, 2008

2. Operation Lifesaver

3. How time flies! May ‘07

4. MidStates represent . . . • 16 states across the middle of the country • 34% of U.S. population • 48% of rail U.S. rail trackage

5. Highway Safety

6. Highway SafetyStatistics Motor vehicle crashes Annual U.S. casualties: < 40,000 deaths < 2 million injuries

7. Highway-Rail Safety

8. Railroad Safety Did You Know? • Approximately every 2 hours in the U.S., a person or vehicle is hit by a train.

9. The Rail Safety Problem, 2007 Preliminary 2007 U.S. Rail Safety StatisticsSource: Federal Railroad Administration

10. MidStates Safety Improves Preliminary 2007 U.S. Rail Safety StatisticsSource: Federal Railroad Administration

11. 2007 MidStates Statistics Preliminary 2007 U.S. Rail Safety StatisticsSource: Federal Railroad Administration

12. Grade Crossing Trends Successes despite: • Increases in both number of cars and miles driven per year • Resurgence in freight rail • Increase in commuter rail

13. Increases in Passenger Rail American Public Transportation Association (APTA) reported that in 2007: • Light rail ridership increased 6.2% • Commuter rail ridership increased 5.5 %

14. The Human Toll

15. Vehicle-Train Collisions: Tragedies that can turn catastrophic • Disruption to communities: negative impact on traffic, commerce • Impact on train crews • The most preventable of crashes: we know where they could occur!

16. What’s New “A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” Sir Francis Bacon

17. Student Drivers

18. New OL Driver Ed Video: “Look to Live”

19. New OL Driver Ed Video Provides flexibility and accessibility: • Web component • Driver education instructors can incorporate it in their programs

20. “Look to Live” Driver Ed Video • Will post segments of video on

21. Professional Drivers • Truck-trailer rigs in 2007 were involved in 17.6 % of vehicle-train collisions

22. OL Presenter’s Guide • In 2009, we will update our presenter’s guide • Will include new signage from MUTCD

23. Engineering Focus • Later this year, a subgroup of OLI’s engineering committee will look into quiet zones

24. Results “You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.” Henry Ford

25. Operation Lifesaver – Results In 2007, OL reached: • More than 3.7 million people via OL state programs, training and events nationwide

26. OL Driver Education In 2007, OL reached: • More than 198,000 new drivers in 6,500 Driver Ed presentations • Nearly 104,000 high school students in 1,130 presentations

27. Outreach via www.oli.org

28. YouTube Generation

29. YouTube Generation OLI objected to 3 videos: • “Kid Films Himself on Train Tracks” • “The Most Stupid Stunt of All Time?” • “Guy Lies Under Train as it Passes”

30. YouTube Success!

31. Light Rail Education • OL is now providing its safety training to transit agencies in major metropolitan areas • Pilot project with Austin Capitol Metro

32. OL Safety Messages Austin Capital Metro’s web page/poster

33. New Key Safety Tips pamphlet

34. Why OL is Important • A proven model for collisions, injuries and fatalities • A success story within the traffic safety community • Crash statistics support this

35. Another Challenge –Pedestrian Rail Trespassing

36. Educating the Media • Step up efforts to reduce trespass incidents • Media imagesromanticize dangerous behavior USA Today Local newspaper insert Readers’ Digest

37. Operation Lifesaver Strengthening ties with the engineering community

38. Save the Date! 2008 Operation Lifesaver Symposium & Training Seminars Cincinnati Marriott at RiverCenter July 21-23, 2008

39. www.oli.org