New CEO and Trustees welcomed to The Road Safety Trust

Sonya Hurt has joined The Road Safety Trust as CEO replacing Sally Lines OBE.

The Road Safety Trust, dedicated to achieving zero deaths and serious injuries on UK roads, welcomes Sonya alongside four new Trustees.

Sonya Hurt joins with a wealth of road safety knowledge and experience. Having worked in the industry for nearly 30 years, she understands the practicalities of road safety. Sonya started her career in engineering and joins us from Via East Midlands (VIAEM) and has held non-executive roles with Road Safety GB, Road Safety GB International and the Bikeability Trust.

On joining The Road Safety Trust Sonya said:

“I’m delighted to be joining the Road Safety Trust as CEO and I am passionate about using my knowledge for the benefit of the Trust and for all road users around the UK. I am looking forward to working with the road safety community to ensure that we are funding practical measures, research, dissemination and education, to help achieve our vision of zero deaths and serious injuries on UK roads.”

As a grant-giving charity, The Road Safety Trust is governed by a Board of volunteer Trustees. Trustees have a range of backgrounds including road safety, accountancy, civil service, higher education, politics, and crime reduction. The role of the Board of Trustees is to ensure that The Road Safety Trust meets its charitable purpose through grant-giving of making UK roads safer for all users.

Tanya Fosdick, Shaun Helman and Deirdre O’Reilly all join as Trustees and members of the Road Safety Initiatives Committee and Matthew Scott as the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners representative.

Tanya Fosdick, Research Director at Agilysis is an experienced researcher who specialises in translating complex evidence into practice.

Shaun Helman, Chief Scientist for Behavioural Sciences at TRL is a transport psychologist who has worked in road safety for over two decades.

Deirdre O’Reilly, heads the Customer Insights and Behaviour Change Group at National Highways and has over 30 years of experience in social and behavioural transport research.

Matthew Scott will join as Trustee and represent the Association of Police & Crime Commissioners (APCC). Matthew was elected as Kent’s Police and Crime Commissioner in May 2016 and re-elected for a second term in May 2021.

More details about our staff team is here and further info on our Trustees is here.