Monday, June 15, 2009

Plenary Session Title: Sustaining Real World Safety through Innovative Technologies
The theme for the 21st ESV conference was "Reinventing Safety: Putting Advanced Technologies to Work". Based on this theme, the objective of the plenary session was to discuss how the use of advanced technologies can facilitate innovative solutions to both current and emerging safety problems as well as sustain safety in the long-term. A panel of experts below composed of representatives from automobile manufacturing and the supplier industry, safety advocacy group and the government discussed the various strategies necessary to facilitate large scale deployment of current and future innovative safety technologies to improve traffic safety.

The session was moderated by Dr. Joseph N. Kanianthra, former NHTSA Associate Administrator for Vehicle Safety Research (retired), who set the stage by making a short presentation on the safety need and the importance of focusing on new approaches in safety through further innovations and the use of new technologies.

The panelists included Dr. Bernd Bohr, member of the Board of Management and Chairman of the Automotive Group of Robert Bosch GMBH, Dr. Gerhard Schmidt, Chief Technical Officer and Vice-President for Research and Advanced Engineering at Ford Motor Company, Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen, Dr. Adrian Lund, President of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and its affiliate, the Highway Loss Data Institute, and Mr. Masahiko Naito, Director General of Engineering and Safety Department in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation, in Japan. Mr. Naito could not attend the conference and his presentation was delivered by Mr. Hidenobu Kubota, a member of the Ministry serving currently as the head of the Office of JASIC in Geneva, Switzerland.

All of the slide presentations are posted on this website.

Any questions or comments regarding this plenary session may be directed to the ESV Technical Coordinator, Donna.Gilmore@dot.gov.