Congratulations to leading road safety advocate Professor Michael (Mike) Regan who was presented with the prestigious 2019 ACRS Fellowship at last night’s ACRS Award Ceremony at the Adelaide Convention Centre. The award recognises Professor Regan’s global impact and leadership in transport human factors and road safety.
The award ceremony took place in front of 500 of Australasia’s foremost road safety professionals and advocates, and is deserved recognition of Professor Regan’s outstanding contribution to research, education and policy, particularly in the areas of driver distraction and inattention, and driver interaction with connected, automated and intelligent transport systems.
The award was presented by Mr Llew O’Brien, Federal Member for Wide Bay, QLD, and ACRS President Mr Martin Small, during the 2019 Australasian Road Safety Conference (ARSC2019).
Mr O’Brien said “I commend Professor Regan for his tireless work in helping to make the roads a safer place for all motorists and everything he has done and will continue to do in this space into the future.”
“Highlighting awareness of initiatives that may help save lives is something that should be applauded”, he said.
In presenting the award, ACRS President Mr Martin Small said “Our success in eliminating fatal and serious injury in road traffic by 2050 will depend upon our acceptance and our shaping of road traffic technology and systems. Ahead of this crucial time, Professor Regan’s body of work has re-oriented our focus on human capability towards those essential human machine interface issues which we must grapple with, reminding the world that we must always place humans at the very centre of our safety thought and action. I am delighted to welcome Mike as a Fellow of the Australasian College of Road Safety.”
Professor Regan has BSc (Hons) and PhD degrees in Psychology and Human Factors from the Australian National University, and is currently a Professor of Human Factors at the Research Centre for Integrated Transport Innovation (rCITI) at the University of New South Wales.
Professor Regan has made outstanding contributions to road safety as an academic/researcher, research leader and policy maker. He has designed and led around 150 research projects in road safety in Australia and Europe, many of them large-scale projects across various transport user classes. His research topics include driver distraction and inattention, driver interaction with connected, automated and intelligent vehicles, naturalistic driving studies, field operational testing of vehicle advanced driver assistance systems, driver education, training and licensing, human error in crash causation, user-centred design and evaluation of the vehicle human-machine interface, user-centred design and evaluation of road and traffic environments, and public and user acceptance of automated and driverless vehicles.
Other Notable Contributions by Professor Regan:
- Author/co-author of 340 research reports, articles and papers
- Sits on, or has sat on, the editorial boards of five peer-reviewed journals
- Given around 200 invited presentations on road safety-related topics in Australia and overseas
- Sits on, or has sat on, numerous local and international project Advisory, Steering and Expert committees
- Creator and founding co-chair of the biannual International Conference on Driver Distraction and Inattention
- Engages with the community via television, print and radio interviews on road safety-topics
- Called on to provide information and technical advice to State, Federal and international government road safety-related agencies, to Parliamentary road safety inquiries, to the automotive industry, to lobby groups, to peak professional bodies, and to the Victorian State Coroner.
Through research and other contributions, Mike has supported government and industry in Australia, Europe and the US, and has trained, taught and nurtured the next generations of road safety researchers and professionals. The ACRS and members of the road safety community across Australasia congratulate Professor Regan on his outstanding contributions and 2019 ACRS Fellowship win.
About the ACRS Fellowship Award
The prestigious ACRS Fellowship is recognised as the Australasian road safety community’s highest honour, recognising an individual for their outstanding commitment and effectiveness in their efforts to reduce road trauma. The Australasian College of Road Safety first instituted the award of College Fellow in 1991.
Fellows must be acknowledged by colleagues and co-workers as outstanding by virtue of contributions to road safety rather than their position. The contributions must be of such a nature that they have led to substantial growth and improvement in an important institution or organisation, body of knowledge or aspect of thought and practice associated with road safety. The award recipient is presented with a plaque and citation – there is no financial reward – but it is the College’s highest honour.