Floor slip resistance tests in the USA have historically been written by the members of the ASTM F13 committee. Comprised mostly of expert “liars for hire” that exclusively work for slip and fall attorneys, and representatives of the flooring industry, these tests have been based on either no science, or very little shady science. The tests and the instruments the test methods were designed for were either created to get the answer lawyers will find useful (see the now-withdrawn ASTM F1677 for the Brungraber Mark II and Mark IIIB, and now-withdrawn ASTM F1679 for the English XL Variable Incidence Tribometer), or to help sell slippery floors in America (see ASTM C1028).

All these test methods were eventually withdrawn when the ASTM figured out that there was zero science behind them, and that the test methods were published with nefarious intentions to help sell slippery tile or win lawsuits at any cost. The ASTM even created a Committee of Standards (COS) made up of professionals from various other industries to try to bring this ASTM F13 committee together to publish something based on actual science instead of the nonsense standards that they keep trying to get published which must always be withdrawn for a lack of precision or other fatal flaws within the test methods. So far, all efforts to create an acceptable test method for reliably testing floors for slip resistance have failed in the USA. The rest of the world has watched in wonder…

The F13 members have now decided that since all their test methods are getting withdrawn because they lack precision or any good science behind them, they will now not publish ANY more test methods that mention a specific device. That way, they can keep using whichever withdrawn test method suits them on any given day to either sell slippery tile, or to help win a lawsuit with nothing more than “junk science” and a withdrawn test method. (Spoiler alert: they always lie under oath and say the test methods they use were withdrawn for mentioning patented devices, but they know that’s not the primary reason their standards were withdrawn. Either that, or these “experts” were too stupid to realize BEFORE they published an ASTM standard that the ASTM doesn’t allow for standards to be published for patented devices. If they’re THAT dumb, they shouldn’t be publishing children’s book, never mind testifying in major slip and fall lawsuits!)

Enter science, international research, and integrity!

The newly revised ASTM E303-22 is a test method to determine the slip resistance of a flooring surface or the skid resistance of a road surface using the pendulum DCOF tester (sometimes called the British Pendulum Tester). The official title of the test method is “ASTM E303-22 – Standard Test Method for Measuring Surface Frictional Properties Using the British Pendulum Tester”. The original test method ASTM E303-93 was first published in 1993, which is almost thirty years ago, and was updated in June of 2022. That means the British Pendulum was shown to have precision thirty years ago, and the test method has just become more and more precise over the years. The usefulness and precision of pendulum DCOF slip resistance and skid resistance testing has continued to be verified over and over again in numerous interlaboratory studies, as it has been in use in over 50 nations around the world for over 50 years now, which has led to safety criteria based on lab studies and 50 years of investigating slip and fall accidents, and floors that never seem to have any, around the globe.

The ASTM E303 test method now more closely mirrors the pendulum slip resistance test methods used across Europe, in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and numerous other nations that have been using the pendulum slip resistance test device for decades. The pendulum DCOF tester is easily the world’s most widely-accepted and trusted tribometer for measuring the frictional properties of a surface to assess safety, both in the lab and in the field. E303 has also been used to assess the slip resistance of roads since at least 1993, and the pendulum tester was originally invented in the USA.

There have been numerous research studies done in many countries over the decades using the British Pendulum Slip Resistance Tester. Now the ASTM E303 slip resistance test results will more closely mirror results gotten by the corresponding pendulum test methods presently used in the European Union (EN 16165), the United Kingdom (BS EN 16165), Australia and New Zealand (AS 4663 and AS 4586), and other test methods from so many other nations. The pendulum test methods around the world are becoming more and more uniform with this latest published version of ASTM E303-22, which allows for even further international research studies to be conducted to validate the usefulness and accuracy of the pendulum DCOF slip resistance tester to assess the real-world slip resistance of floors and road surfaces.

The video below shows the British Pendulum tester in action using ASTM E303-22:

If you’re looking to get a ASTM E303-22 dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) slip resistance test done in our lab, click on ASTM E303 slip resistance testing. Contact us for a quote for doing testing at your location. We do coefficient of friction (COF) testing in our certified lab, and we test floors and roads all over North America and beyond. This is our specialty, and our knowledge in this field is unmatched in the Americas. Reports come stamped by a registered professional engineer