Day two of the 2015 National Road Safety Conference will open with a session dedicated to issues surrounding fitness to drive.
The two-day National Road Safety Conference is being held in Nottingham on 18-19 November and already more than 225 people have registered to attend.
On the morning of 19 November, Dr Nicola Christie, director of the UCL Transport Institute, will deliver a presentation focusing on age, health and driving and the implications for policy and practice.
Nicola Christie has more than 25 years’ experience in road safety research, including 16 years at Transport Research Laboratory. She is a member of the Miskin Group, a collaboration of leading researchers in the fields of injury prevention, and the PACTS Road User Behaviour Working Party. In 2013 Nicola was invited to be a founding member of a new UK Transport Safety Commission.
At National Conference Nicola will present the findings of a new report covering issues which affect the driving task relating to age, illness and impairment; and suggest policies which could be pursued to address the associated risks.
Dr Carol Hawley and Tanya Fosdick will deliver a joint presentation looking at visual impairment and road safety.
Carol Hawley is associate fellow in the division of mental health and wellbeing at Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick and honorary principal research fellow at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire.
She has carried out research into the attitudes of health professionals to advising patients on fitness to drive, and has been involved in assessing the quality of guidelines for medical aspects of fitness to drive. She regularly carries out research on older adults, visual impairment and fitness to drive.
Tanya Fosdick is an experienced researcher with Road Safety Analysis who has worked in road safety for many years and has been involved in a number of national road safety projects. Tanya has also been leading evaluation projects since 2003 after gaining a postgraduate research certificate in research methodology.
Their joint presentation will outline the findings of a new report which will be published by the time of conference, and give recommendations as to actions that should be taken in the light of the report’s findings.
Neil Greig, director of research and policy at the IAM, will discuss why older drivers give up driving.
Neil Greig is responsible for setting the strategic direction for the IAM’s Policy and Research Division, co-ordinating its research programme and working with the media and opinion formers across the UK. He represents the IAM in Scotland and in Brussels on working parties of the FIA. He is a member of the DfT Road Safety Advisory Group, the Scottish Government Road Safety Operational Group and chairs the publicity committee of Road Safety Scotland.
As reported earlier, this conference session will also include a presentation by Martin Ellis, policy lead on drug driving at the DfT, who will update delegates on the new drug driving laws which were introduced earlier this year.
2015 National Road Safety Conference
The 2015 National Road Safety Conference will be held at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham on 18-19 November. The event is being hosted by Road Safety GB East Midlands region and is co-sponsored by Colas, AA DriveTech, Vysionics and Pepsico. 225 people have already registered to attend and 23 companies will exhibit alongside the conference.
Click here to register to attend as a delegate.
Click here for information about exhibiting at the event.
Comment on this story