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concessionaires, design consulting engineers, academia and other safety stakeholders to encourage the replacement of outdated technology and to introduce state-of-the-art practices in countries around the world, thereby assisting governments with their commitment to the 3262 United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

  • IRF General Assembly elects Bill M Halkias as the new IRF president
    July 29, 2019
    Meeting in Costa Navarino (Greece) in the margins of the ASECAP Days, the General Assembly of the International Road Federation (IRF) has unanimously elected Bill M Halkias, PE, F.ASCE, F.ITE as new president of IRF. He takes over from Kiran K Kapila at the end of his third and final mandate as IRF chairman. Halkias brings to the IRF 38 years of experience in transportation and road infrastructure works gained both in the USA and in Europe. Currently managing director and CEO of Attikes Diadromes SA, the
  • A defining milestone for Caribbean cooperation
    July 20, 2012
    Over 200 delegates from 31 countries took part in the 1st IRF Caribbean Regional Congress, a new platform for dialogue at the service of a region with fast-evolving infrastructure needs. As they address the questions of development and global integration, many of the Caribbean region's island nations are adopting visionary measures to adapt their highway infrastructure to the needs of a booming economy, growing regional trade and an increasingly mobile population.
  • Step up Action! IRF in New York for the launch of the UN Road Safety Fund
    June 15, 2018
    The Road Safety community gathered in New York on 12th-13th April for the launch of a new United Nations Road Safety Trust Fund. The new UN Fund is intended to catalyse road safety action across the globe, using donations to help unlock new government and municipal funding and refocus national road safety budgets towards proven ‘Safe System’ interventions. The FIA Foundation has pledged a donation of US$10 million to kick-start the fund launched by UN deputy secretary-general Amina Mohammed. The FIA Found
  • The IRF Geneva signs memorandum of Understanding with the Transportation Research Board (TRB)
    May 10, 2018
    Last November, at the IRF World Road Meeting in Delhi, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Tranportation Research Board Executive Director Neil Pedersen, Kiran K Kapila, chairman of the International Road Federation (IRF) in Geneva, and Susanna Zammataro, IRF Geneva Executive Director. TRB and IRF Geneva share mutual organisational objectives, and this MoU provides a conceptual framework for partnership to share knowledge, improve implementation of innovative solutions, disseminate good pract