What is Walk the Talk?

Every year, over 450 child cyclist and pedestrian injuries and deaths occur in Alberta. The fact that most of these are preventable drove the Alberta Office of Traffic Safety to launch the Walk the Talk About Back to School Safety Program in 1997. Today, it stands as a banner child traffic safety program in the province. The 1998 Walk the Talk program was awarded the Silver Premier's Award of Excellence in June 1999. Alberta's educators were a critical part of the program's extended team.

Walk the Talk is about kids' safety and leading by example. The program focuses on improving education on child traffic safety issues and is profiled during the months of August and September when kids head back to school. Walk the Talk is designed to educate Alberta families on child traffic safety practices. And when school is back in, it is also a reminder to motorists to be on the lookout for children and school buses, and to drive with special care throughout the school year.

The program brings schools, families, and the entire community together on a special day in September. Alberta "Walks the Talk" Day encourages families to walk through their children's route to school, providing them with practical safety tips on how to avoid any dangers they may encounter. It also highlights the importance of safety, year-round.

Why Walk the Talk?

In our fast paced world, children are often the tragic victims of our inattention or our rush to get where we're going, making traffic-related collisions the single- leading cause of injury or death for children today.

Walk the Talk provides children with the necessary safety tools and practices to help them grow up healthy and free from harm. The program unifies educators, caregivers, children, parents, guardians, motorists, decision-makers and the media, building a province-wide network of communities dedicated to keeping kids safe.

Whether children live in the city or in the country, getting to and from school, safely, has their own special challenges. These include: busy roads, crossing lights, having to get on and off a school bus safely, crossing a busy highway and knowing how to walk safely along the side of a road where there are no sidewalks. Walk the Talk helps kids meet all of these challenges successfully.

For details, call the Alberta Office of Traffic Safety at (780) 422-8839, outside of Edmonton, 310-0000 (toll free).

Alberta Transportation Office of Traffic Safety
The Alberta Office of Traffic Safety recognizes that in our traffic environment, children are often the most vulnerable and tragic victims of either driver error or their own errors. To reduce this risk, the Initiative developed "Walk the Talk About Back to School Safety." Through these educational programs we are providing educators with the materials they need to prepare children with safety tools and encourage positive practices that will allow them to thrive safely in our highly mobile environment.

Alberta Motor Association's School Safety Patrol
The Alberta Motor Association's School Safety Patrol is a community- based partnership of teachers/supervisors, students, and enforcement officers. The primary purpose of the program is to instruct, direct and control students in crossing the roadways at or near schools, and to assist teachers and parents in safe pedestrian practices at all times and places. Whenever possible, children should cross the street with the patrollers and obey their instructions - they are there to help keep them safe.

KidSafe Connection - Edmonton and Calgary
KIDSAFE Connection addresses the leading causes of death, disability and hospitalization for Alberta children - preventable injuries - through advocacy, education, awareness, data collection and evaluation. Priorities are considered based on the frequency and severity of unintentional childhood injuries. The major injury risks facing Alberta's children are: transportation injury, falls, fire and burns, poisoning, choking and suffocation, and drowning. KIDSAFE Connection is a program of the Stollery Children's Health Centre in Edmonton and the Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary. It is supported by the Children's Health Foundation of Northern Alberta and the Alberta Children's Hospital Foundation to benefit all of Alberta's children.

Alberta Centre for Injury Control and Research - The mission of the Alberta Centre for Injury Control and Research is to reduce the frequency and optimize the treatment and rehabilitation of injuries in Alberta by providing coordination and support for injury control programming, research, information sharing and education.

They help focus attention on Alberta's largest injury issues including motor vehicle collisions, through partnerships like Mission Possible, Think and Drive, Collision Prevention Week, and the Highway 43 Project.

Visit Video Archive for Quicktime movie clips on Walk the Talk Safety Minutes.

You may also be interested in visiting our educators page