Michael McDonnell, director of Road Safety Scotland, has seen his distinguished career recognised with a Road Safety Support Lifetime Achievement Award.
Michael began his career as a primary school teacher before gaining a Diploma in Theology and a Degree in Divinity. His career in road safety began as a local road safety officer with Strathclyde Regional Council before joining RoSPA as road safety manager (Scotland).
He was the longest serving member of the Scottish Road Safety Campaign (SRSC) before taking up the post of director in 2004. One of his early contributions to the new role was to change the name of the organisation from the Scottish Road Safety Campaign to Road Safety Scotland in 2005.
Michael is an advocate of the lifelong learning approach to road safety education, based on the fact that the types of attitudes and behaviours which young drivers exhibit are laid down at a very early age, probably before they leave primary school.
Positive attitudes developed in childhood form the foundation for responsible road use in adult life and through integrating road safety education in school within the (Scottish) Curriculum, it is intended to encourage people to adopt a lifelong-learning approach to road safety.
Road Safety Scotland has developed a suite of resources for use in schools during the formative years, so that children and young people have access to high-quality road safety education materials which focus on the issues which make them vulnerable on the road.
As Michael says: “To be effective, road safety education needs to be provided on a systematic and continuous basis in pre-school establishments, primary and secondary schools, within out of school activities and places of further education.”
Michael was directly involved in the development and implementation of Scotland’s Road Safety Framework initially to 2020 and then similarly the renewed Framework to 2030. The Road Safety Framework to 2030 sets out a compelling and ambitious long-term vision for road safety, Vision Zero, for Scotland to have the best road safety performance in the world, where no one is seriously injured or killed on Scotland’s roads by 2050.
The Award was presented to Michael by Emma Kelly – senior adviser, Steve Callaghan – technical support and calibration laboratory manager, and Sandy Bowman – Scottish liaison manager from Road Safety Support.
It was presented at the Road Safety Scotland Annual Seminar.
Emma Kelly, senior adviser for Road Safety Support, said: “We are delighted to present this Lifetime Achievement Award to Michael.
“This award is in recognition of his outstanding contribution and dedication to road safety over 36 years. His work embodies the ethos of collaboration and partnership working. He is such a worthy winner and a deserving recipient.”
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