The Floor Beneath Your Feet Has Been Compromised, and Paid Expertise Holds the Blame
America has a floor safety problem, and it has nothing to do with floors.
Across the country, Americans suffer millions of slip-and-fall injuries, with some serious enough to require emergency medical treatment. Many never fully recover. Some lose mobility permanently. And yet, case after case, the same outcome emerges. Property owners face litigation, a professional witness takes the stand, produces a number from a device that no other country would accept as credible, and declares the floor safe. The building owner is vindicated. The injured party is left without compensation. And the machinery that produced that verdict moves on to the next case, without any reassessment.
I have spent decades in floor safety science and slip resistance, and I believe one of the biggest problems in this field is hiding in plain sight. And that is the rise of the professional expert witness whose expertise lies less in science and more in persuasion.
A troubling number of these witnesses operate as full-time litigation consultants. One week, they testify about aviation failures. The next week, they are suddenly experts in construction defects, automobile crashes, or slip resistance. Courts present them as authorities because they know how to perform in front of juries and create the appearance of technical certainty. Any scientific credibility becomes secondary.
Slip resistance testing in the United States has become especially vulnerable to this problem because many of the instruments and methods being presented in court would not survive serious scrutiny outside that environment. Several devices commonly used in American litigation have repeatedly shown poor precision and inconsistent repeatability. Yet those same devices continue appearing in courtrooms because they can produce results favorable to whichever side is paying the invoice.
Meanwhile, the pendulum test, which has been relied upon across the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and large parts of Europe for decades, remains marginalized in many American legal disputes despite its long international track record. That disconnect should concern every building owner, architect, insurer, and policymaker in the country.
I have personally worked cases where a building owner admitted on record that his floors became so hazardous in wet conditions that he had security staff deploy mats immediately whenever weather conditions changed, firing employees who took too long.
Those facts alone demonstrated awareness of a hazardous condition.
Yet an opposing expert later appeared with a handheld device claiming the floor exceeded an arbitrary threshold, and therefore could not be considered slippery. According to his testing, the floor was supposedly safe despite the building owner’s own operational policies acknowledging the opposite. Even independent pendulum testing identified the surface as hazardous under wet conditions. Still, the courtroom argument revolved around whichever instrument produced the more convenient number. Apparently, the building owner, his staff, his termination decisions, and the pendulum tester were all wrong. Only the hired witness was right.
This manufactured ambiguity has become the acceptable business model.
Insurance economics intensify the problem even further. They are, in many cases, publicly traded entities accountable to shareholders. Large claims involving catastrophic injuries can reach millions of dollars over a victim’s lifetime. That is not an expense a profit-driven institution would absorb without resistance. The pressure can create demand for expert testimony capable of minimizing liability or reframing risk. Entire consulting careers have emerged around supplying precisely that service.
The consequences of this willful discretion can extend into multiple divisions. Building owners receive contradictory guidance about how to evaluate flooring products. Manufacturers promote proprietary testing systems that frequently certify surfaces ordinary pedestrians would instinctively recognize as hazardous. I’ve often observed how industry-created standards rely on methodologies disconnected from the global scientific consensus. Some organizations even highlight “high-traction” certifications based on rating systems that would not be accepted internationally as reliable indicators of safety. Essentially, confusion becomes profitable.
Architects, facility managers, and commercial property owners are then forced to navigate a maze of competing claims. One test says a polished surface is safe. Another says it presents an elevated risk under wet conditions. Nobody operating in good faith should have to decipher that level of inconsistency simply to reduce injuries inside a building. Yet none of the testing infrastructure exists to protect people who fall. It exists to protect the products and parties that could be liable if they did.
Transparency is urgently needed.
Property owners deserve answers about which testing methods are scientifically defensible and internationally validated. Courts deserve objective measurements rooted in methodology instead of anecdotal performance. Injured individuals deserve evaluations based on science rather than whichever expert happens to speak with the most bravado before a jury.
There’s nothing radical about what I’m asking. Other countries have already demonstrated that consistent slip-resistance frameworks are achievable. Regular pendulum testing before installation, after installation, and during scheduled maintenance cycles can provide measurable accountability and create documented safety benchmarks.
Resistance to that shift has been significant.
Inside ASTM Committee F13, which oversees many American slip-resistance discussions, efforts to advance more rigorous methodologies have repeatedly encountered institutional reluctance. Proposed standards capable of strengthening scientific consistency often stall, while weaker methods continue circulating throughout the industry. After years of frustration, I ultimately concluded that meaningful reform required an independent path.
That has led me to publish practical, science-based testing standards, including the AFSA FS101-25, that help reduce preventable injuries and give building owners reliable tools for managing risk. We are developing methods rooted in internationally recognized research, not litigation incentives. We want facilities to identify dangerous surfaces before someone suffers a traumatic injury, not after attorneys become involved.
Floor safety should never depend on who hires the more polished witness. Reliable science already exists. International models already exist. The missing ingredient in the US is the willingness to prioritize public safety over institutional convenience and financial self-interest.
Every pedestrian who walks across a lobby floor, hospital corridor, airport terminal, or grocery store aisle deserves standards built on honest measurement. That is their prerogative, and it shouldn’t be denied any longer.
About the Author:
John Sotter is the co-founder of American Floor Safety Alliance and President of Safety Direct America, where he focuses on floor slip resistance testing, slip-and-fall expertise, and anti-slip floor coating development. He previously worked as a Senior Technician at Safety Direct America for nine years, building hands-on technical experience. Based in Mission Viejo, California, he appears to combine practical field knowledge with product development and safety consulting.
