IRF-Washington Hosts Delegation from Georgia
A delegation of top-level road authorities from Georgia, led by Mamuka Vatsadze, Head of Transport Department, visited the IRF-Washington office on March 28, 2008 to discuss road safety and financing issues. Patrick Sankey, CEO & Director General, IRF-Washington welcomed the delegation and provided an overview of the topics, encouraging the implementation of a dedicated road financing fund.
"By ensuring there is a dependable source of financing for your national road infrastructure, you invest in your economy and the safety of your people," said Sankey. There are other sources for financing roads than user fees, Sankey said. He also urged the delegation to implement a dedicated fund for implementing new, state-of-the-art road safety technologies.
Forgiving Highways
Mike Dreznes, Deputy Director General, IRF-Washington, provided a summary of the Forgiving Highways concept.
Dreznes’ presentation illustrated the fact that roadway safety requires safe drivers, safe cars and safe roads. Highways will always be dangerous. As long as humans are driving cars, accidents will happen. Since accidents cannot be eliminated, efforts must be made to design the highway so the ultimate results of accidents are less severe.
“It is the responsibility of road authorities to know what state of the art products and best practices are available to make the roads safer, how they work and where they should be used,” said Dreznes. He continued by emphasizing the road authority’s responsibility to remain current and knowledgeable to ensure that the life or death decisions that they must make on a daily basis are correct, and that the funds allocated to them are properly spent.