Technology drives road safety
Unfortunately, tens of thousands of Europeans lose their lives on the road every year. Technology can play an important role in bringing this number down. This is the idea behind the eSafety initiative backed by the European Commission and a range of relevant stakeholders. The goal of the EU-funded project Safety-Technopro is to accelerate the adoption of new road safety technologies. Research shows that vehicle owners trust the opinion of their car salesperson, mechanics and vehicle inspectors. With this in mind, Safety-Technopro sought to reach out to these industry professionals with a flexible training tool. Feedback from the professional bodies themselves was used to drive the tool's development. An internet-based questionnaire made it easy to gather feedback from across Europe, ensuring that geographically differing perspectives would be taken into account. The most promising new technologies targeting road safety were also identified, with a focus on those mature enough for deployment. These two elements were combined to create a training system with individual modules tailored specifically for car dealers, mechanics and other industry professionals. A series of user-based trials is expected to help optimise the tool's effectiveness. Looking to the future, it is easy to keep the tool current thanks to a special module that can be updated on a regular basis with the latest road safety technologies.
