Others

In Belgium, as in Europe and large parts of the Western world, life expectancy is ever increasing. While this "aging" is made possible by very comprehensive preventive or curative health care, this certainly does not eliminate all the cognitive or motor impairments associated with aging. In addition, older people are also becoming increasingly mobile, and more specifically, they are using their own vehicle or car up to a higher age.

As people age, two risks that are often used in the context of road safety become important:
- Accident risk: the likelihood to be involved in an accident.
- Injury risk: the likelihood of injury, given an accident has occurred.

With this product, the senior selfTest, we focus on the triggers for accident risk with senior drivers.

Safe participation in traffic, in the context of an ageing population, presupposes two things: "driving skills" and "fitness to drive". Driving skills are strongly linked to learning processes, gaining experience, vehicle control and traffic insight. Fitness to drive has more to do with the physical and mental abilities of the driver: health, sensory and cognitive abilities, influence of alcohol, drugs or medication, etc.

Older road users usually have a very extensive mobility and traffic experience, and associated with that generally overall good driving skills. However, as drivers age, some of the mental and/or physical capacities needed to put those skills to good use gradually decrease. In other words, fitness to drive decreases. Examples are: reduced vision (sharpness, night blindness, etc.), poor hearing, higher reaction times, reduced muscle control or muscle strength, etc.

This decline in capacities is likely to proceed in two speeds. For most people it can be expected that this is a gradual process, which may also be partially absorbable or slowed down. Barring sudden illness and accidents, the decline in physical or mental functionality is a process of several decades. However, when looking at the oldest age categories, it can be expected that a quicker decrease in physical or mental functionality occurs as a result of (a higher likelihood of) more grave illnesses.

Although road users compensate for this natural decline in capacities to some extent (e.g. by driving less at night, driving slower, etc.), there is still a general risk that one's own skills and fitness to drive will be overestimated, or that a decline in skills and suitability will eventually go too fast. In other words, if a self-regulating compensation mechanism is used, it may not be enough to continue to drive “safely”. Different supporting measures need to be developed if we wish senior drivers to truly remain independently safely mobile.

With the SelfTest we present a product that aims at increasing awareness with senior drivers on the importance of psycho-cognitive factors and their own capacities in relation to accident risk, and therefor safe and comfortable driving.

The SelfTest, its development and use is described in the paragraph “project activities”.
The relevance towards improving road safety, compared to other actions taken to support safe driving by senior drivers, is described in the paragraph “evaluation”

The aim of my project is to design a portable device or app to detect fast moving objects.

Approximately 2.2 million people globally are vision impaired.

As a vision impaired person, I have difficulty seeing oncoming vehicles and other hazards, such as electric cars or e-scooters.

For these reasons, I developed VIPMOD: Vision Impaired Person's Moving Object Detector.

Vision impaired people are not the only group of people with this difficulty.

People with other access needs, such as mobility disabilities, or people who are hearing impaired, will also benefit from VIPMOD, helping them to live safer and more independent lives.

Mobiliteit is een hot topic. Iedereen heeft er een mening over. Toch hebben mensen soms het gevoel dat ze onvoldoende geïnformeerd zijn om mee te praten in het mobiliteitsdebat en om mee na te denken over concrete oplossingen voor meer gezonde mobiliteit in hun buurt. Mobiliteitsjargon vormt zo een hindernis voor mensen om volwaardig te kunnen meepraten over een thema dat uiteindelijk iedereen aanbelangt.

Tijdens workshops, inspraakmomenten en begeleidingen met burgers kan je er niet zomaar vanuit gaan dat iedereen mee is met dat mobiliteitsjargon. Woorden als sluipverkeer of parkeermanagement krijgen al snel verschillende invullingen. Daarom besliste Mobiel 21 om enkele moeilijke woorden op een heldere manier uit te leggen in een reeks laagdrempelige en informatieve video’s met de naam ‘Mobiliteit voor Dummies’. Daarin geeft Glenn Godin, medewerker bij Mobiel 21 en verkeersdeskundige, met een grappige draai en de nadruk op duurzame oplossingen, een antwoord op vaak gestelde vragen. In een reeks met 7 verschillende filmpjes legt hij telkens een ander mobiliteitsbegrip op een heldere manier uit. De onderwerpen van de filmpjes zijn: De knip, fietsstraat, verkeer, schoolstraat, sluipverkeer, parkeren en wegencategorisering. Het zijn stuk voor stuk begrippen die vaak ter sprake komen, bijvoorbeeld wanneer gemeenten hun burgers betrekken bij de opmaak van nieuwe mobiliteitsplannen.

‘Mobiliteit voor Dum­mies’ kwam tot stand met de ste­un van ‘All 4 Zero’. Met dat project willen de ver­schil­lende over­he­den in Bel­gië het aan­tal ver­keers­do­den in ons land tegen 2050 terug­bren­gen tot nul. All 4 Zero betrekt burg­ers actief in het ver­beteren van de ver­keersvei­ligheid, onder meer via een nationale enquête en the­ma­tis­che burg­er­pan­els. All 4 Zero moedigt ook lokale ini­ti­atieven aan om hun eigen straat, buurt of gemeente ver­keersveiliger te mak­en. Net daarom is het zo belan­grijk dat iedereen kan meep­rat­en over mobiliteit. En daar draagt onze reeks ‘Mobiliteit voor Dum­mies’ toe bij.

The road safety challenge is motorists parking their vehicle on footpaths and cycle lanes, blocking access for pedestrians, cyclists, pushchairs and those with reduced mobility. This leads to vulnerable road users such as wheelchair users, the visually impaired, people with buggies, children and older pedestrians not having adequate room to walk safely, potentially forcing them out onto the road. Parking in cycle lanes forces cyclists out into mainstream traffic, where there is an increased risk of a collision occurring.

The book "My Hero" graces the libraries of the 110 schools of Rhodes following a decision by the Board of Directors of the Primary & Secondary School Committee of the Municipality of Rhodes. The goal is to adorn the libraries of all schools in the South Aegean Region.
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I feel proud because I managed to write a book starting with my Hero who returns to Rhodes who meets his friends, operators, the Prime Minister of his country to talk about the human lives that are lost in the streets and with the aim of being read and for its readers to know the causes of traffic accidents, for my country, for the Strategic Road Safety Improvement Plan in Greece, for Europe, for World Victims' Remembrance Day, for supporting victims and everything about traffic accidents and how they can be reduced.

The drivers of An Post deliver to over 2 million addresses on a daily basis. Unfortunately, some drivers do not respect the speed limits or do not wear a seatbelt. The campaign also want to create more awareness around vehicle rollaway prevention and safe movement of vehicles.