North American regional leaders join ASCE San Jose Tech Talk

Our North American Regional Leaders Jacob Smith and Yasmine Al Moghrabi joined the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) Younger Member Forum last Thursday, March 2, to discuss the Safe System Approach. The “Tech  Talk” focused on transportation engineering and road safety as part of civil engineering. 

The ASCE is a professional body represented by global civil engineers. The organization “stands at the forefront of a profession that plans, designs, constructs, and operates society’s economic and social engine.” It also has student chapters at universities within the USA and Canada. 

The Tech Talk: Transportation event tackled issues around creating infrastructure to ensure sustainable transport. During their interventions, Jacob and Yasmine talked about what young people, through the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety, are doing in support of creating this.

Yasmine and Jacob introduced the Youth Coalition in terms of its membership and its goal of uniting and empowering young people to take action for road safety, sustainable mobility, and meaningful youth participation. They shared some of the opportunities the Youth Coalition provides and elaborated on its Capacity Development Series that help improves its members' skills and abilities. 

Following the overview of the current status of the youth and road safety movement they advocate for, Jacob and Yasmine shared a presentation about the safe system approach from the engineering perspective. 

Yasmine talked about the reality that there are some engineers who are not aware of road safety as an element of engineering, who see it simply as an awareness campaign that needed to be handled by advocacy groups. Through an interactive game, Yasmine and Jacob were able to talk about road safety and the safe system approach, and how engineering can play a role in bolstering it.

They shared content from the YOURS Academy’s module on the Safe System Approach to establish how road safety and engineering come together. They emphasized how the Safe System brings together interconnected elements which include; safer roads, safer infrastructure, multimodal transport and land-use planning, safe road users, safer vehicles, and post-crash response. 

They also gave examples of how engineer members of the Youth Coalition led Local Actions projects that had to do with tactical urbanism and integrated elements of engineering in project implementation. 

They invited participating civil engineers to get more involved in road safety and see it as an important element in their projects and assignments. “We talked about why we need the Safe System Approach in the USA and how every one of its elements is related to our work as civil engineers,” - Yasmine Al Moghrabi 

Learn more about how road safety connects with engineering by enrolling in YOURS Academy;