In the spirit of our five year celebration since the United Nations World Youth Assembly for Road Safety, we are putting the spotlight on organizations that were inspired to set up after the assembly. We start with the Canadian Road Safety Youth Committee that was set up by Canadian delegates to the WYA. YOURS will be featuring organizations set up with the assembly in mind in our special WYA five year feature.
The Canadian Road Safety Youth Committee (CRSYC) was formed following the World Youth Assembly on Road Safety in Geneva in 2007. The purpose of the CRSYC is to provide a youth voice to road safety in Canada and work to reduce the impact of road traffic injuries on Canadian youth. You can read about the Canadian Delegates to the World Youth Assembly for Road Safety here.
The CRSYC work to advocate for healthy public policy and programming, create awareness of the issue, develop a youth network, and promote international initiatives such as YOURS locally.
The committee is made up of a range of young people with a vested interest in road safety. Committee members have expressed;
‘My interest in road safety began after noticing that although roads and vehicles are designed to ever increasing standards, drivers seem to be getting worse and worse. As such I studied how drivers behave in school and playground zones as a 4th year university project and it went from there. I became involved with CRSYC as a provincial representative after the Montreal conference in 2007. My goal in CRSYC is to help shift the way people travel and think about travel, thereby making transportation systems safer and more efficient for everyone.‘ – Doug Leonhardt, Vice-Chair of theCYRSYC
‘I believe road safety is one of the current leading issues of the country. It is crucial to spread national awareness to continue declining the rate of impaired driving fatalities. I hope to gain experience and knowledge in outstretching this message through the CRSYC. I sit on the awareness sub-committee as one of my roles in the CRSYC. This consists of generating awareness at national, provincial and local levels by communication through the website and road safety awareness activities. I was recruited on the committee when I introduced myself to a CRSYC member at a TADD Conference in May 2009’. – Palak Satija, Awareness Subcommittee
‘As one of the Canadian delegates that travelled to Geneva in 2007, I was a part of CRSYC since its inception and have acted as its secretary for almost 3 years. My interest in road safety began during a university co-op term, where I worked for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, under the direction of Dr. Tarek Sayed. Having dealt with statistics of collisions and its dire consequences gave me an impetus to work towards creating safer roads not only for Canada, but for the world. Through CRSYC, I hope to work towards this goal by bringing together Canadian youth from established road safety organizations to create a unified voice for youth road safety.’ – William Hui, Chair of CRSYC
The Committee has writted factsheets to download about the Graduated Driver License, Impaired Driving and the use of Cell Phones while driving. These are available to download in the attachments of the story.
The CYRSC also took part in our 2011 awareness campaign; Embrace Life Campaign. Their photos can be viewed below:
More information about the Canadian Road Safety Youth Committee can be found at their website here: http://www.youthroadsafety.ca