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Officials at the event.
DOHA: The new national road safety identity ‘One Second’ yesterday launched a school programme ‘Students for Road Safety’ at Qatar Foundation’s (QF) Qatar Academy.
The programme focuses on developing awareness and understanding of road safety in students between 12 and 18 years through workshops and the use of a state-of-the-art mobile driving simulator, designed and developed by Williams Advanced Engineering in Qatar.
Starting at Qatar Academy but travelling to schools throughout Qatar, the programme aims at reaching out to thousands of students over the coming years.
Maersk Oil Qatar with the National Traffic Safety Committee, Qatar Petroleum and Williams Advanced Engineering launched the programme.
Maersk Oil Qatar’s Deputy Managing Director, Sheikh Faisal Al Thani, said, “We are delighted to launch ‘Students for Road Safety’ today as part of our continuing focus on road safety. This forms part of our social investment commitment to make a long-term contribution to Qatar through quality partnership programmes that have a lasting impact on lives.
“The roads are one of the most challenging environments of modern life. Young people are our future, and it is our responsibility to provide them with the right knowledge and mindset that will protect them on the roads, and enable them to grow into responsible road users.
“This is what this new programme has been designed to do — to encourage children to become promoters and ambassadors of road safety at school and home, and ensuring they are better equipped with safer driving attitudes when they become drivers themselves.”
The simulator built as part of the campaign was built by a multinational and multi-cultural team of engineers at Williams Advanced Engineering.
Local talented graduates from Qatar Academy, Carnegie Mellon University Qatar and Texas A&M University Qatar were part of the Williams team and offered insight into cultural and behavioural aspects of road safety in Qatar. A team of engineers at the Williams Technology Centre, Qatar, spent 12 months and 10,000 man hours designing and building the simulator that will tour schools.
The simulator is the first system of its kind in Qatar. Its serial-number plate boasts the number 001 and ‘made in Qatar’, and brings the world’s most advanced road safety driving simulation technology to local students and communities.
The Peninsula
