“ Hello and welcome to the Chris Cairns Foundation.

It was a brief meeting that I had in the offices of Toll NZ in Auckland in Nov 2005 that has initiated this organization in memory of my sister Louise Cairns. Some two years later and we are now up and running and looking to make a difference on the landscape of rail tragedy that sees far too many people killed on our level crossings in NZ every year.

Whilst my sister is the catalyst for this Foundation, there have now been over one hundred people killed at level crossings in NZ since her death in 1993. The vast majority if not all of these deaths are avoidable and this is the truly sad fact in this entire situation.

As a Foundation we have identified three areas that we would like to be involved in. Education, awareness and implementing warning measures at level crossings.  Whilst these three aspects are things we strive to do there can not be enough said about getting the message across to the public that a level crossing is indeed no different to that of a traffic intersection. Why do we not have barrier arms at traffic intersections? Why is it that people stop when a red light shows at traffic intersections and remain behind a painted white line on the road but at level crossings with warning bells sounding, flashing red lights and barrier arms do people feel the need to race across in front of a train that has no way of stopping? Part of this is the knowledge that people feel they can get away from prosecution as no one will see them. The police have become far more vigilant with prosecuting people who do not heed the warning signs and this is a great start.

The Foundation has some principle sponsors involved and who allow us to go about our work and make a difference. We are indebted to these companies and I cannot thank them enough. We are also looking at many ways to raise more funds needed to implement our concepts and we encourage you all to keep looking on this site or subscribe to our monthly newsletter to keep informed as to how you can help. Without your help financially and also passing the message of personal responsibility at level crossings on to others, we couldn’t make a difference so thank you all.”

Yours truly,

Chris Cairns

Chris Cairns Foundation.