Innovative projects to improve the safety of road users and pedestrians have been heard in Parliament as part of an AIRSO (Association of Industrial Road Safety Officers) initiative in honour of Sean Morley a local student who was killed in a hit and run in 2012. This special event was hosted by Craig Tracey MP.
Sean’s parent Kerry and Gareth Dean helped to organise the event which saw students from across the country submit their projects. A shortlist was selected by a panel of judges including Dr Lucy Rackliff of AIRSO. Nuneaton MP and Minister Marcus Jones was a guest speaker.
This year’s winner of the Sean Morley Award was Daniel Morris, a recent graduate from the University of Surrey, whose project outlined the idea of an App which could determine the safest possible routes for drivers based on a data and analysis model ‘network’. This Android based application can predict real world scenarios to estimate dangerous routes allowing the user to select a safer GPS route if necessary.
North Warwickshire and Bedworth representative, and Kerry and Gareth Dean’s MP, Craig Tracey praised those taking part.
“I think the standard of ideas was really impressive and the awards have grown even bigger since last year. It is a fitting tribute to Sean Morley and the hard work of Sean’s parents who have campaigned in his memory.”
Kerry Dean, who spoke at the event, commented:
“We are so proud to have such able students submitting their work. The quality of the submissions is outstanding and we want the award to be a platform to launch the research and new innovative ideas made by these young talented people into the world of road safety. Even if one of the submissions goes on to save lives then we have achieved a positive change in Sean’s name. We have no doubt that Sean would have gone on to have a successful career, most likely in politics but had that opportunity taken away.
“A candidate who is now working with JLR submitted research highlighting dangers on car manufacturer seat positions for short and tall people. Hopefully JLR will take her research on board!
“Dr Lucy Rackliff from AIRSO created the award in Sean’s name and MP Craig Tracey has been instrumental in promoting this award into universities nationally. We hope to continue and grow the award’s success and encourage all students working on road safety projects to submit their work for 2018.
“Going into 2018, we are potentially looking at apprentice submissions and would encourage those particularly from local businesses to make contact with MP Tracey or Dr Rackliff to discuss.”
Dr Lucy Rackliff commented:
“As an academic, I saw so many innovative and exciting road safety approaches being developed by students, across a huge range of disciplines. What seemed to be missing was any way of communicating these ideas to the people who could use them. The Sean Morley Award gives recent graduates a platform to explain their work, and to demonstrate the road safety benefits of it. All of our finalists did a fantastic job, and I hope that the industry representatives who attended the event will be able to take the work further and use it to make a genuine contribution to road safety.”