Mayo App developer wins prestigious road safety accolade

ANDREW Irwin from Westport has scooped a top accolade at the Road Safety Authority (RSA) ‘Leading Lights in Road Safety’ Awards.

He captured the first ever ‘Judges’ Award for Technology and Innovation in Road Safety’.

Following a conversation with his mother over Christmas break in 2014, Andrew created a road safety app that would detect when the user is driving and automatically set your phone to ‘drive mode’ as well as issue an auto response to those trying to contact the driver.

The DriveSafe app was released to the Google Play Store in October 2015, and has since been used 50,000 times by 9,000 people in 123 countries.

A total of 37 individuals and organisations were honoured for their commitment and dedication to road safety at the ninth annual ‘Leading Lights in Road Safety’ Awards which were presented by RSA chairperson Liz O’Donnell and RSA chief executive Moyagh Murdock in Farmleigh House.