HSRC to host Highway Safety Symposium in honor of 40th anniversary

The field of highway safety research has come a long way since former Governor Dan K. Moore first signed the Highway Safety Research Center into existence in 1965. One year later, with a new director and a hope of improving highway safety, the Highway Safety Research Center was established in the Veteran’s Club on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus.

This October, forty years later, the Highway Safety Research Center will host The Evolution of Highway Safety: How Research Can Save Lives on Our Roads, an inaugural symposium in celebration of the anniversary of the Center.

The symposium will discuss the many factors that influence highway safety and the importance of research in developing solutions. Speakers will review the accomplishments that have led to improved practices, policies and legislation, as well as look to the future and discuss the type of research that will be required by multiple disciplines to reduce the toll on our highways. The symposium will be an opportunity to foster a stronger connection between practitioners and researchers and to learn where different disciplines –behavioral scientists, engineers, public health researchers and others – will need to focus their efforts in the future.

HSRC is privileged to present the following speakers whose careers have been dedicated to improving highway safety:

Dr. Forrest Council, former HSRC director and senior researcher for over 30 years, will review highway safety in a historical context and discuss many of the accomplishments achieved in recent decades.
Dr. Bruce Simons-Morton, Chief of the Prevention Research Branch in the Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention Research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, will present his vision of how the social/behavioral sciences should contribute to future highway safety research.
Dr. Ezra Hauer, world renowned engineer and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto, will speak on the future of highway safety research within the engineering realm.

The event is open to the public and will host an audience of highway safety researchers and practitioners, University officials, researchers and students, as well as members of the general public.

To learn more about the symposium and the speakers, or to sign up to attend the symposium, please visit www.hsrc.unc.edu/news_room/events_40th-anniversary.cfm.