Skip to main content

IRF appoints new global road safety champion

The International Road Federation has a new spearhead for its global road safety programme. Michael Dreznes will serve as the Federation's (IRF) executive vice president with worldwide leadership on training, policy and capacity-building activities.
March 2, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
The 713 International Road Federation has a new spearhead for its global road safety programme. Michael Dreznes will serve as the Federation’s (IRF) executive vice president with worldwide leadership on training, policy and capacity-building activities.

"Mike has spent the last twenty-six years working to make roads safer around the world," said Patrick Sankey, president and chief executive of IRF in Washington DC, the United States, where Dreznes will be based. "He is recognised as one of the world's leading experts on roadside safety, pioneering the concept of Forgiving Highways, and we are thrilled to have him lead the road safety initiatives of IRF."

Sankey said one of Dreznes’s key areas of responsibility will be to work with road authorities around the world to use IRF's Safer Roads by Design executive road safety training.

Speaking about his new role Dreznes said: "IRF is where I can truly make a difference. Too many countries around the world are using obsolete roadside safety measures and technologies that should have been replaced twenty years ago.

"I will collaborate with road authorities, concessionaires, design consulting engineers, academia and other safety stakeholders to encourage the replacement of outdated technology and to introduce state-of-the-art practices in countries around the world, thereby assisting governments with their commitment to the 3262 United Nations Decade of Action to reduce fatalities by 50% by 2020," Dreznes said.

The co-chairman of the 2774 Transportation Research Board Roadside Safety Design Subcommittee on International Research Activities, Dreznes is also a member of the TRB AFB20 Committee on Roadside Safety Design.

Founded in 1948, the IRF is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization with members from both the public and private sectors in 90 countries worldwide.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Private sector shows leadership on road safety at UN High-Level Meeting
    September 26, 2022
    The International Road Federation (IRF) convened key industry leaders to discuss “Action for Road Safety: Private Sector Leadership” on the occasion of the UN High-Level Meeting on Global Road Safety hosted in New York on 30th June and 1st July.
  • IRF accepting Fellowship programme applications
    July 14, 2014
    The International Road Educational Foundation is now accepting applications for its IRF Fellowship Programme. The Class of 2016 will start its first Semester in Autumn 2015. Students selected for the Class of 2016 will also participate in the 10-day IRF Road Scholar Program, held in Washington, DC in January. The IRF Fellowship Program provides a graduate level scholarship to young professionals who have strong academic backgrounds, professional qualifications, leadership potential, and a commitment to retu
  • New IRF president takes up new role
    July 13, 2022
    IRF chose the International Transport Forum Summit (ITF 2022), hosted in Leipzig, to mark the start of the IRF Presidency of Anouar Benazzouz. Succeeding Bill Halkias who has concluded his three-year mandate at the helm of IRF, Benazzouz was elected unanimously as IRF president by the General Assembly on 29 March 2022 in Amsterdam.
  • International Road Federation has partnered with RAI Intertraffic
    April 1, 2016
    Delegates experience IRF training at world’s largest road fair The International Road Federation has partnered with RAI Intertraffic, the organiser of the world’s largest road fair, to hold complimentary training workshops open to all visitors. A pilot course on roadside hazard identification and management introduced during Intertraffic Istanbul in 2015 received very positive feedback and has now been expanded to four introductory courses on a wider range of topics made available to all Intertraffic Ams