CARSP SNN Interview – Liraz Fridman

Date: January 12, 2026

Interviewer: Kristine D’Arbelles, Managing Director of Public Affairs at the CAA National Office, CARSP Safety Network Newsletter Editorial Board Member

Interviewee: Dr. Liraz Fridman is the current president of CARSP and Road Safety Supervisor for the City of Guelph. After graduating from her PhD program at York University she completed two postdoctoral fellowships jointly at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute in Calgary in the areas of injury prevention and speed management. Her passion for equity, injury prevention, and road safety led her to a role in municipal government where she developed the first Community Road Safety Strategy which is now being adopted using a Vision Zero framework in Guelph.

Kristine: Welcome Doctor Fridman and thank you so much for joining us today. Can you start by sharing a fun fact about yourself? 

Dr. Fridman: Sure. So I thought a little bit about this. And in terms of something that really resonates with me, I think it's both fun and sort of integral to who I am, but it's that I'm trilingual. So my parents actually immigrated to Canada when I was about 2 1/2 years old. And so I grew up speaking both Russian and Hebrew in my household and I learned English when I started the first grade around the age of 6, but anytime we have big family get togethers I still go back to my native languages.

Kristine: That's really awesome. I'm also trilingual, actually, but bilingual parents, very similar to yours, French and English. And then I added in Spanish because I married into a Spanish family. So it's really nice to have those different languages in your life. 

Dr. Fridman: Absolutely. 

Kristine: So how did you begin working in road safety and what led you here?

Dr. Fridman: Like many others, I landed in this role a bit haphazardly. I'm actually trained as an injury epidemiologist. I did my training at York University back when I was doing my PhD and I was interested in looking at the connection about how policy affects injury rates. So that was everything from falls to drowning to poisonings, and of course road violence and collisions were one of those variables. And it was at that point that I realized the true burden of road violence and how it affects our day-to-day lives as well as the preventability of these tragedies. That really stuck with me.
After spending years as an academic, I wanted to implement some of my learnings in the real world and that's what brought me into municipal policy-making where I am now the road safety supervisor at the City of Guelph. But I like to think that I wear two hats in my role because I understand the policy making side and the implication of a lot of how these interventions get implemented from the financial side to how government decisions are made, but also the research and academic side to thinking about projects more holistically and some of the evaluation components that are really important in road safety. So it's been an interesting way to bridge some of that gap between the implementation science components and those academic or research backgrounds.

Kristine: Those are two really awesome backgrounds to bring together because it is so important in trying to move some road safety issues forward. It is not just understanding the issue, but understanding how to implement a solution as well. So that's a wonderful background. So, given that you're in road safety and you've been doing some really interesting work, what do you think at this time is the most pressing need in road safety?

Dr. Fridman: So if you'd asked me this question five years ago, I would have said speed. It's everything I did my academic background on. I still am very interested in speed management and how that engineering component affects the day-to-day lives of people if people were to make better choices when it comes to speed. But these days I believe one of the most pressing needs is something that's a little bit more intangible, especially from a research background, and that's looking more holistically at this idea of road safety culture. We talk a lot about engineering to solve the problem, so we don't die from poor decision making, but I think we really need to dive a little bit further into thinking about what makes people accountable to each other. We don't run each other over with grocery carts at the supermarket, we're not weaving in and out or tailgating people with the wheels of our cart because the social norm is there. But somehow on the roads that feels acceptable in some way. And so I think that the engineering component and the human factors component need to work together more closely so that we can understand these concepts more holistically.

Kristine: I agree… the ability to change human behavior, right? How do we figure out how it fits in our society and then how can we change that as well? Drunk driving, while not completely eradicated, is significantly different in our culture today than it was three decades ago. So that human factor is super important also just given how many accidents and collisions are caused by human factors too.

Dr. Fridman: Absolutely. 

Kristine: You mentioned how the route to road safety is not linear, so if you're talking to a young CARSP member or a young professional who actually has that drive and interest to want to get into road safety and have a career in road safety, what would be the advice that you would give them?

Dr. Fridman: I would start by telling them that it's a bumpy road. I never realized how politicized some road safety topics could be. Take speed safety cameras in Ontario, as a recent example. You become an advocate for what you believe in, and you use that evidence to support you. Sometimes it feels like being a lawyer and as much as it can be challenging at times, I also feel as though it's extremely rewarding. It's a very rewarding field to work in, and so no one pursues a career in road safety without having a passion for that topic. And so my advice would be to let that passion fuel you and also not be afraid to get creative. I think we need bold solutions and passionate individuals to pursue careers and road safety if we want to achieve our goals of zero deaths and injuries on our roads.

Kristine: Totally agree. That's wonderful advice. And I hope our young CARSP members who are listening can take that advice with them, as well as any young professionals who are looking to get into this industry because I think it's very important. Thank you so much for answering these questions. Thanks for joining us today.

Dr. Fridman: My pleasure. Thanks very much for having me.