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Copyright © 1999 FleetWatch magazine and FleetWatch On-Line. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior written permission from the publishers. Views published are not necessarily those of the publishers. |
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October
1999
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It is by pure chance that South Africa, for the first time in its history, hosted a conference on vehicle crash investigation and reconstruction at a time when a string of horrific bus crashes had served to highlight the lack of safety on South Africa's roads. This, in turn, highlighted the importance of accident investigation and reconstruction to determine how accidents happen and what steps need to be taken to prevent such incidents occurring in the future. The conference, titled the 3rd International Conference on Accident Investigation, Reconstruction, Interpretation and the Law (AIRIL '99), was held at the CSIR Conference Centre in Pretoria from October 25 - 28th. Previous AIRIL conferences were held in Australia in 1995 and 1997. It was hosted by the National Department of Transport in conjunction with the CSIR. FleetWatch, in line with our philosophy of being in partnership with the trucking industry and as such, is in support of any venture which leads to overall improvements in this sector, was proud to associate itself with this conference by sponsoring the hold-all briefcase-type bags used by the over 200 delegates who attended. Our support for this conference was wholehearted as we firmly believe the subject is one which needs to be promoted and advanced in our accident riddled country. FleetWatch has a problem in that past accidents have seemed to come and go without any concrete learning processes arising from the investigations. We need a more professional and detailed approach which results in overall improvements rather than mere reports which get filed. We also need more transparency in the dissemination of the results of such investigations. It was with all this, plus more in mind that we aligned ourselves with the conference. The aim of AIRIL' 99 was to facilitate the sharing of information and experience between the many disciplines involved in dealing with the multi-faceted aspects of the consequences of road traffic accidents. Trends, techniques and developments in the investigation, prevention and reconstruction of road traffic accidents were also highlighted. Speakers from as far afield as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom addressed the conference on international developments in safety research, insurance liability issues and associated legislation and regulation. A one day seminar on the reconstruction and investigation of heavy vehicle accidents was held after the conference while a course in on-site accident investigation aimed at the front line police officer who may be called to attend a vehicle accident, preceded AIRIL' 99. We will report on the conference in a later edition. Alternative Articles |
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FleetWatch
Aligns Itself with an SA First