A final year student at the Dublin Institute of Technology has made a major technical breakthrough in tractor safety. James O Meara, a final year Manufacturing and Design Engineering student, won the Innovative Student Engineer 2010 (Level 8) award sponsored by Siemens and Engineers Ireland for his project. Details are available at http://www.dit.ie/news/archive2010/studentengineer/

I had the pleasure of attending the local project presentations heat at which the project was selected to represent the Dublin Institute of Technology in the national competition. I was highly impressed both by the invention and by the insightful and skillful manner in which James O Meara had gone about implementing and developing it. Unfortunately, tractor accidents involving the coupling and de-coupling of machinery cost lives and serious injuries every year. This invention allows such operations to be undertaken by a tractor driver without leaving the safety of the cab. Lives will be saved and injuries will be avoided. Efficiency will be significantly enhanced. It is to be expected that this technology will be adopted all around the world.