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concessionaires, design consulting engineers, academia and other safety stakeholders to encourage the replacement of outdated technology and to introduce state-of-the-art practices in countries around the world, thereby assisting governments with their commitment to the 3262 United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

  • Roads for Regional Enhancement
    November 1, 2012
    IRF once more broke ground by gathering over 600 regional transport officials for the world's first comprehensive review of sustainable transport solutions in the context of the Andean Region. Lima, Peru, an important regional crossroads for trade and a hub for engineering know-how, offered an ideal backdrop for the Congress. The event offered a comprehensive panorama of design, construction, and maintenance solutions adapted to the region's exceptionally complex topography. Geological and climatic conside
  • IRF awards Parsons for its East End Crossing work in the US
    August 7, 2015
    The International Road Federation (IRF) has awarded its Global Road Achievement Award for project finance and economics to Parsons for the East End Crossing of the Ohio River Bridges Project. Parsons, which served as the technical advisor for the implementation of a public-private partnership (PPP), received the award for achievements in cost savings and accelerated project delivery. This was done through the PPP procurement process for the development, design, construction, financing, operation and m
  • ITS promotes sustainable Mobility
    June 14, 2012
    As introduced in an important new publication, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has a longstanding commitment to promoting and creating an enabling environment for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). The world’s citizens depend on safe, efficient and secure transport systems. Whether we travel by road, boat, rail or air, we rely on our transportation systems to get us where we need to go. The same systems play an important role in our national economic well-being, making it poss
  • Public-private participation for highway law enforcement
    April 18, 2017
    In some countries, public-private partnerships for road traffic law enforcement are helping to greatly reduce traffic fatalities. But careful implementation is essential, according to a new white paper. Big brother is watching you. Speed cameras are just a cash cow for local authorities. Police use them to keep their speeding ticket statistics high. The list of suspicions goes on. But there is nothing suspicious about road deaths, says Philip Wijers, chairman of the sub-committee on enforcement at the US-ba