{"id":4789,"date":"2011-09-08T07:47:30","date_gmt":"2011-09-07T23:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/road-safety-101\/"},"modified":"2022-12-07T13:06:46","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:06:46","slug":"road-safety-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/road-safety-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Road Safety 101"},"content":{"rendered":"

A traffic tragedy very close to home has convinced two academics to push for a formal road safety unit to be introduced at Curtin University.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Engineering student Yu Xiaqing, Mr Golshani, Engineering student Malama Lumbwe and Professor Nikraz 'come together' for road safety.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2010, a Curtin College<\/strong><\/a> student from Bangladesh who was hoping to enter the University’s civil engineering program died in a car crash not far from Curtin’s Bentley campus.<\/p>\n

“That was devastating,” Department of Civil Engineering head Hamid Nikraz told Curtin News<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“One of our lecturers had been a mentor for the student and had built close links with his family.”<\/p>\n

Professor Nikraz said the fatal accident was deeply felt by the student’s family and the University’s staff and students.<\/p>\n

The tragedy brought into sharp focus a paper that Professor Nikraz, lecturer and researcher Ali Golshani, and Mrs Zhila Nikravan – a vocational senior lecturer at the Australian Institute of Commerce and Technology – had recently completed for a conference in Spain.<\/p>\n

Reduction of Road traffic accidents among young drivers through university and vocational studies<\/a><\/strong><\/em> notes that 3000 people die every day in crashes around the world.<\/p>\n

In terms of lost human life, the number of deaths equates to a 9\/11 disaster every single day.<\/p>\n

“Civil engineers are responsible for traffic engineering and the physical elements of road safety,” Professor Nikraz said.<\/p>\n

“What we were trying to do with the paper was focus on the human element.”<\/p>\n

The paper lays the foundation for a road safety elective to be introduced in the University\u2019s Engineering Foundation Year program.<\/p>\n

The idea is still embryonic, but Mr Golshani said talks were well advanced and some material already entered on the University Blackboard<\/a><\/strong> online teaching system.<\/p>\n

“We have got a lot of programs in schools that teach kids about traffic and safety but, by the time young people start driving, a lot of the lessons have been forgotten,” Mr Golshani said.<\/p>\n

“If we can arrange a unit to remind students about road safety then we might be able to help reduce the accident rate.”<\/p>\n

The proposed course would stress the importance of seatbelt wearing, the dangers of speeding, and the perils of driving when intoxicated or tired.<\/p>\n

The idea has a precedent of sorts – at Queensland University of Technology – which offers a graduate diploma and a certificate in road safety for students interested in entering transport-related fields.<\/p>\n

Mr Golshani said the Curtin course would be an elective ‘half unit’ focusing on road transport’s role in society, and the economic and social impact of crashes.<\/p>\n

The proposed elective would run for three hours a week for 12 weeks, and carry credit toward an Engineering degree.<\/p>\n

Mr Golshani said that, once trialed, it would be possible to adapt the unit for other areas of the University.<\/p>\n

PHOTOGRAPHY: SAM PROCTOR<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Engineers come together to plan road safety unit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-4789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/roadsafety1-2.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 14:58:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4789"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=4789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}