Lifetime Achievement Award

Dainius Dalmotas

Dainius graduated from Sir George Williams University (Montreal, Canada) in 1972 with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. He then joined the Road Safety and Motor Vehicle Regulation Directorate of Transport Canada, where he occupied a variety of positions until his retirement from the federal government in 2005.

From 1998 to 2005, he was the Chief of Crashworthiness Research. As such, he was responsible for planning and managing contracted research in the areas of human biomechanics and vehicle crashworthiness, conducting in-house development and evaluation projects supporting regulatory initiatives addressing vehicle crashworthiness, and developing position papers on technical policy issues pertaining to automotive safety in Canada. While at Transport Canada, he conducted collaborative research efforts with a number of organizations, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), and the Australian Government.

Dainius has produced numerous technical reports, and is the author of many scientific papers that have been published in the international literature. He has received several awards, including the US Government Award for Safety Engineering Excellence in 1996, and an Award of Excellence for An Outstanding Contribution to Transportation in Canada in 1997. Most recently, Dainius was the recipient of the Arnold W. Siegel International Transportation Safety Award for 2019.

He has served on a number of committees under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Harmonization of Research Activities (IHRA). His past memberships have included the Advisory Council for the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, and NHTSA’s Blue Ribbon Panel for the Evaluation of Advanced Airbags. He was also a Visiting Scholar at George Washington University, Washington, DC.

Dainius is currently a member of the Advisory Board for the Stapp Car Crash Conference, and remains active as a consultant in the field of automotive safety research and crash testing.

Geni Bahar

Geni is one of Canada’s outstanding road safety professionals. Her lifetime contributions are many, diverse, and important.
In many Canadian cities and a few in the US ones lives were saved directly by the numerous operational reviews, safety audits and the community traffic studies which she directed.
Another category of contribution are the projects involving system wide safety modeling and network screening. These helped to improve road safety in many states, provinces, regions and metropolitan areas.
Then there are the new tools and methods developed with Geni’s help, under her leadership and with her ingenuity. These enriched and improved the arsenal of the profession. Thus, for example, she co-lead the development of the SafetyAnalyst (for FHWA) which provides a comprehensive review of the road network to enable the selection of the most cost-effective countermeasures. Similarly she also led the development of the highly influential Highway Safety Manual designed to provide information and tools to facilitate roadway design and operational decisions based upon explicit consideration of their safety consequences.
And finally there are policy papers, learned papers published in important journals, manuals to guide practice, as well as course and training materials such as ‘The Science of Highway Safety (for MTO), and ‘New Approaches to Highway Safety Analysis (for FHWA and for the U.S. National Highway Institute).
Important as these reports and documents are, Geni’s contribution goes way beyond. Much of her work and time went to the teaching and training of professionals and thereby promoting the evidence-based delivery of road safety. She taught numerous road safety courses and specialty workshops in Canada and in the US and led the Canadian contribution to the development of ITE‘s program of certification of road safety specialists.
We are all safer due to her work.

Mr. Paul Boase

Paul as a certified Road Safety Professional has served as Chief Road Users at Transport Canada for the past 21 years. He began his career in road safety in 1987 as senior research analyst with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

Over the past 30 years, Paul has been involved in research and policy analysis in the areas of impaired driving, collision data analysis, distracted driving, child restraints, vulnerable road users, commercial vehicle safety, graduated licensing, photo radar, administrative license suspension, driver fatigue, and road safety legislation and regulation. He has been involved with numerous road safety projects including Naturalistic Driving Studies, child restraint surveys, seat belt surveys, the Canadian implementation of the Drug Evaluation and Classification Program (DECP), development of the methodology for conducting nighttime drug and alcohol surveys, the development of technical standards for alcohol ignition interlocks, the ISO standard on road safety management, and the Pedestrians and Cyclists Around Heavy Vehicles Ministerial Task Force. He has also worked on various Road Safety Plans for Canada and has considerable first-hand experience working with large motor vehicle crash databases.

Paul has served on a wide variety of road safety committees and has received a number of awards over his career. He has participated in the development of book chapters, scholarly papers in peer-reviewed road safety journals and has presented at the Transportation Research Board meetings, the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrator meetings, the International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety conferences and CARSP Conferences.

Paul has been a long-time member of CARSP, participating in numerous conferences as an author, presenter, panelist and moderator. He has also reviewed abstracts/papers, organized plenary sessions and served on conference organizing committees. He has also been a board member for several years, serving as Chair of the Membership Committee, Vice President, and is currently the Chair of the Finance Committee and Treasurer.

Dr. Frank Navin

Frank’s work in Road Safety started when he took over Transport Canada’s Road Safety Research team for British Columbia over 40 years ago. Much of this research focused on civil and traffic engineering aspects of highway operations. His work at UBC has supported police road safety programs and involved full scale vehicle collision and dynamic experiments. Many of the vehicle experiments took place in cooperation with provincial ministries, policing as well as the University of North Florida.

As an Professional Engineer and Professor Frank has been involved in many different vehicle testing environments. His work has involved truck and car breaking experiments, static testing for rollovers including fully loaded tractor trailers, proof testing road side barriers, winter traction tests for cars and trucks, steep down hill breaking tests using different salt/sand mixes on the roadway and vehicle cornering tests to name a few.

Frank has published many papers over his career and has received numerous prestigious awards. The program he was responsible for produced eight PHD’s and 16 masters’s degree graduates, all with a focus on road safety. Frank also helped start ICBC’s Road improvement Program, and his work has also included experiments in Traffic conflicts, implementing municipal safety improvements and conducting the first Canadian road safety audit on Highway 1. Frank was also a member of the Ontario professional Engineers Highway 407 Safety Review Team.

Frank has been a long time CARSP member and has presented 17 papers CARSP Conferences across Canada. He has been a member of the CARSP board for several years and chaired the 7th annual meeting held in Vancouver.

Ms. Mavis Johnson

Mavis has made significant contributions for over 50 years as a Road Safety Specialist. She has also received a number of prestigious awards for her work. Her work has included development and management of enforcement, engineering, and education programs at the international/national/provincial/ municipal/local/community level.

Mavis began her career as a Police Constable in Lancashire, in the United Kingdom. She came to Canada where she began her work at the Vancouver Safety Council later joining the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. Some of her roles at ICBC included Road Improvement, Community Development and Traffic Safety Education. Mavis has been involved in Road Safety Audits, Special Reports on Road Safety, integrating road safety into school curriculum, Safe routes to school strategies, Safer City Programs, and a Global Drink Driving Strategy.

In Canada, Mavis has provided consultation and strategic advice in developing Traffic Safety Plans in Alberta, Nova Scotia, and the city of Edmonton, provided the mid-term review for Canada’s Road Safety Vision and has provide ongoing leadership and expertise on Vision Zero/Safety System Initiatives. Her International road safety consulting and expertise has taken her around the world to Costa Rica, Romania, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Vietnam, Belize and Indonesia to name a few.

Mavis has been a member of CARSP for 32 years. She has been involved in all aspects of conference planning and organizing committees as well as conference chair and vice chair. She has been an author, presenter, panelist, facilitator and moderator, abstracts and paper reviewer and organized plenary sessions. Over the years she has served on the board of Directors on many positions including Vice President and President. She has been an ongoing newsletter contributor, developed the knowledge sharing initiative for CARSP, currently developing CARSP as a mentoring body for low/middle income country partners through the Global Alliance/NGO’s for road safety.

Dr. Evelyn Vingilis was awarded the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professional’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Vingilis has had an outstanding impact on road safety at a provincial, national, and international level. Her research has addressed multiple issues in road safety including alcohol- and drug-impaired driving, street racing, mental health and driver behaviour, and evaluation of road safety strategies and countermeasures. Throughout her career, Dr. Vingilis’ work has been presented in more than 206 conference presentations, including 129 invited addresses, and published in more than 133 journal articles, 4 books, and 23 chapters.

Read Dr. Vingilis’ complete biography: Evelyn Vingilis Biography

Mr. Felix J.E. Comeau was awarded the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professional’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr Comeau is a pioneer in the field of breath alcohol testing. Over the past 40 years he has made significant contributions in developing instruments and programs that are now commonplace in the field of traffic safety. He graduated with an Honours Bachelor of Sciences degree in Biochemistry from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and started his professional career as a forensic scientist with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Forensic Science Laboratories. He specialized in breath alcohol testing programs and services for law enforcement and judicial purposes for 8 years. Read Mr. Comeau’ complete biography: Felix J.E. Comeau Biography

Dr. David Wiesenthal was awarded the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professional’s Lifetime Achievement Award. David’s career spans 46 years, starting as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Special Lecturer at York University in 1970 and continuing to his retirement in 2016 as Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar. He has served on a wide variety of committees within York University.

His research addressed a number of social issues relevant to applied psychology, including blood donation, vandalism, scientific racism and violence in sport, however, his most prolific research was in the area of road safety, particularly in the areas of driver stress and aggression, driver distraction and street racing. His published work includes more than 60 journal articles and 18 book chapters and more than 160 workshops and conference presentations.

He has contributed greatly to the next generation of road safety advocates and served on the Board of Directors between 2009 and 2015.

Ms. Anne Leonard was awarded the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professional’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Anne Leonard, recently retired as the Executive Director of arrive alive DRIVE SOBER in Ontario has a career that spans 20 years. Starting out as a volunteer with the Ontario Community Council on Impaired Driver, she became the founding member and eventually the President of arrive alive DRIVE SOBER. Anne has been tireless in her passion for impaired driver awareness both within Ontario and across Canada. She has worked with multiple organizations, including Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving, Action Sudbury, Student Life, Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, Ontario Provincial Police and many other organizations. Anne’s organization has played a key role in Ontario in changing the attitudes and perceptions towards impaired drivers. She has received a number of awards, including the Regional Commander’s Award from Toronto Police, the 2016 Public Safety Award of Excellence, and two Road Safety Achievement Awards presented by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. She continues to volunteer with the organization after her retirement in January 2017.

Dr. Alison Smiley was awarded the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professional’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Alison is the current President of Human Factors North, based in Toronto, Ontario, a position she has served in for the past 32 years. Her many accomplishments include serving as an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto in the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department for the past 24 years, organizing and conducting a number of workshops in Canada and the United States on road safety/human factors, publishing more than 50 academic articles, and writing several book chapters, and producing more than 100 reports and conference presentations. She is widely sought after as a expert witness in traffic accidents. Alison has won a number of awards, in the field of road safety and human factors, including the A.R. Lauer Safety Award given by the US Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Dr. Dan Mayhew was awarded the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professional’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Daniel R. Mayhew is Senior Research Scientist and Advisor at TIRF and has 35-years of experience in the traffic safety field. A major focus of his work involves young and novice drivers, driver education and training, GDL systems, driver improvement, senior drivers, and commercial truck driver safety.
Dan is internationally recognized for his achievements and has managed projects and consulted with governments in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe on these road safety topics.

Dan is a member and past chair of the U.S. Transportation Research Board (TRB) committee on Operator Education and Regulations, and a member of the TRB sub-committee on Young Drivers. He recently served as deputy chair of the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety – Queensland (CARRS-Q) external review panel.

Dr. Robert (Bob) Dewar was awarded the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professional’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Bob received a Ph.D. in Psychology in 1965. He taught psychology at the University of Calgary from 1965 to 1990. He is now President of his own consulting firm, Western Ergonomics, Inc., specializing in driver behavior and traffic safety.

Bob was unable to attend the Montreal conference, so the award was presented to him in Alberta by Jeanette Espie, Executive Director for the Office of Traffic Safety.

Professor Michel Gou was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Michel is a member of faculty in the Machine Design Section of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at École Polytechnique, Montréal. He is also the Director of École Polytechnique’s Road Safety Team that has worked to improve road and motor vehicle safety for the past 30 years.

The Board Member Appreciation Award was given to Jeff Suggett, a Senior Transportation Planner with Associated Engineering, St. Catharines, Ontario. The Board thanked Jeff for all his contributions over the 10 years he served on the Board.

Founding Fellows:

• Dr. Robert Baird
• Dr. Brian Jonah
• Dr. Claire Laberge-Nadeau
• Mr. Tom Beckett
• Mr. Peter Cooper
• Dr. Ezra Hauer
• Dr. Bill Mulligan
• Mr. John Read
• Mr. Carl Shiels
• Dr. Albert Stevens
• Mr. Ken O’Brien