Kanturk duo helping make our roads safer for tourists
TWO enterprising students from Kanturk have played a key role in the development of a potentially life-saving new road safety awareness campaign.
Coláiste Treasa fifth-year students Mark Lyons and Aisha McAuliffe make it to the final of this years BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition with their ‘ Tale Care! Be Internationally Aware’ road safety project.
Impressed with their research, car rental company Europcar Ireland offered the pair internships on their 2016 Tourism Index initiative, an ongoing project aimed at raising road safety awareness among tourists visiting Ireland.
Mark and Aisha worked with the Europcar team at their HQ helping to generate different ways in which to highlight the issue of road safety using data collected from more than 700 tourists over the summer season.
Their research makes for interesting reading, with 98% of those surveyed saying they enjoyed driving in Ireland and 71% saying the scenery was the best part of the experience.
In what may come as a surprise to many Irish motorists, 86% of tourist thought the quality of Irish roads was very high.
However, they did point out that driving in Ireland was not without its challenges, with the top three obstacles facing them being; driving on a different side of the road, poor road signage and varying speed limits.
During their time with Europcar Mark and Aisha also produced road safety material offering tourists useful advice on motoring Ireland and how to best enjoy the experience and remain safe.
Their advisory booklet can be viewed at www.europcar.ie.
Colm Brady, business development director with Europcar, was very impressed with Mark and Aisha’s work during their internships.
“Promoting safe and enjoyable driving among tourists is a key objective for us, so we were delighted to welcome Mark and Aisha to support the Europcar Ireland team and help us find interesting ways to educate and enlighten tourists about road safety,” said Mr Brady.
“The students have done some great work during their short time with us and we are certain they both have promising futures ahead of them,” he added.