Dr. Claude Got: The Father of Accidentology and Road Safety in France

2023-08-11 20:54:00

“Father of accidentology” and “Mister road safety in France”, the doctor Claude Got, who notably defended the compulsory belt and was a “public health activist”, died Friday in Belgium at the age of 87 years.

Suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and “deeply affected by the death of his wife”, “he went to Belgium for an assisted suicide, according to his wishes”, Jean-Yves Lamant, president of the League, told AFP. once morest road violence, informed of the death by the family of the deceased.

His disappearance was also confirmed to AFP by the French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT).

“Father of accidentology, convinced of the need for resolute action, he dared to defend ambitious measures to better protect the health and safety of French people, such as the compulsory seat belt, a provision that has now become part of our customs”, reacted the Ministry of Health and Prevention in a press release.

“The law on preventive blood alcohol controls, like the report he co-wrote and which largely inspired the Evin law once morest smoking and alcoholism, contributed to saving thousands of lives and promoting better collective health” , continues the ministry, hailing “the memory of a true public health activist”.

At the very end of the 1970s, Claude Got was adviser to the ministers of health Simone Veil and Jacques Barrot.

“Expert among experts in accidentology”, he was “constantly consulted” and “solicited by most governments” on road safety issues, added Mr. Lamant.

General interest

He was “the Mr. road safety in France for 60 years”, “he made it possible to put science behind road safety by a whole bunch of expertise and all his conclusions were authoritative”, summed up the president of the association with which Mr. Got has “worked hand in hand” for more than 20 years within his committee of wise men.

This pathologist was a member of the expert committee of the National Road Safety Council (CNSR) but also president of the scientific college of the OFDT and was honorary professor at the René-Descartes University of Medicine (now Paris-Cité University).

Claude Got had started his career as an intern in the hospitals of Paris, then head of clinic before moving towards pneumology, resuscitation and finally pathological anatomy.

Then head of the pathological anatomy department at the Raymond-Poincaré hospital in Garches (Hauts-de-Seine) in the early 1970s, he was asked by a Renault doctor to improve seat belts.

He then carried out autopsies of accident victims to develop biomechanical knowledge of the lesions produced by accidents and to analyze the violence of shocks as a function of speed.

Claude Got was one of the writers of the CNSR experts’ report which proposed a series of measures to halve the number of deaths in ten years (2010-2020) on the roads.

As early as 2020, he commented on the difference in mortality on roads without a median separator which maintained the 80 km / h compared to that observed on roads allowing once more to drive at 90 km / h.

“He had this ability to transform scientific research results into useful measures for the general interest”, underlines Mr. Lamant.

In addition to his publications in the general media and his personal publications in the field of traumatology, Claude Got animated a website, securité-routière.org that the League once morest road violence intends to continue.

He presents himself there as an “atypical doctor-teacher-hospital-researcher” and writes that “alcohol, tobacco, AIDS, asbestos … destroy lives and the reduction of their nuisance is part of the obligations of authorities”.

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