If you’d prefer to listen to a podcast talking about this blog post while you drive, click here.

The first camp is made up of “non-profits” that pretend that they are interested in helping stop slip and fall injuries from occurring, but they pander to and are supported by the flooring industry itself, and these “non-profits” help the people they represent come up with slip resistance test methods (that keep getting withdrawn, or exposed as bad tests that don’t accurately assess safety) that serve to tell us that slippery flooring isn’t slippery, and another “non-profit” sells “high traction” stickers for flooring and floor products. Both of these “non-profits” help manufacturers of flooring and floor products make more sales and profits. The test methods they publish are part of the problem because they do not accurately identify slippery floors.

The rest of the world doesn’t fall for this American nonsense. They use independent, reliable science that’s been researched for well over 50 years to help avoid slips and falls from happening, partly because many other counties (especially in Europe) have a system of universal health care, which means even the government, as well as building owners and architects, have an interest in stopping preventable slip and fall injuries. It costs the governments of these countries money fixing broken arms and hips with tax dollars that is much better spent elsewhere, such as housing the homeless, or buying second mansions for themselves.

The second camp consists of full-time expert “liars for hire” that work only for personal injury attorneys and insurance companies. Their interest is not in science or stopping slips from occurring. Their interest is figuring out a way to get the result the lawyer paying them wants them to get. If they do a good job of saying exactly what that lawyer wants them to say, then that lawyer is much more likely to hire them the following week when another slip and fall lawsuit comes across their desk. By pandering to big-time lawyers that do a lot of slip and fall defense work (and pandering to the big-time personal injury attorneys at times, as well), some of these people claim to have testified in hundreds or even more than a thousand slip and fall lawsuits. These are full-time professional liars that make the situation worse with fake tests and bogus data.

The more people that get injured in slip and fall incidents, the more jobs available to these “liars for hire” in camp #2, so why would they be interested in stopping them from happening? They aren’t. They don’t work for architects and building owners using proven, reliable and precise scientific devices that will help these people stop slip incidents from happening, but rather they come in with fake data after the injuries have occurred to help win, win, win these high-dollar lawsuits.

The two most common instruments used by this camp of “experts” are the English XL and the Brungraber Mark IIIB, and it’s baffling how these “instruments” that have been proven to lack precision in published studies are still let into American courtrooms as “science” since they were rejected by OSHA, the ASTM, and the international community of experts in this crucial field of study long ago. They are anything but real science.

These fake, unreliable “slip test instruments” are not intended to help stop the slip and fall injury epidemic in America, and they are rarely, if ever, used to help stop slips and falls from happening. They are only used in American courtrooms to win lawsuits. Below are photos of the Brungraber Mark II and Mark IIIB used by full-time courtroom “liars for hire”. One has a withdrawn ASTM standard (withdrawn over 20 years ago), and the other one has no peer-reviewed, published test standard in ANY nation because it lacks precision. In essence, it’s been proven that every operator of this device gets a different answer on the exact same spot of flooring. This allows users of this device to learn to manipulate the Brungraber Mark IIIB to get the answer the lawyer wants.

In fact, one peer-reviewed, published research study from Australia stated quite clearly that, “When compared to the other test methods, the VIT tends to underestimate the wet slip resistance of smooth polished, glazed or surface-protected tiles, while overestimating the slip resistance of tiles with a textured or profiled surface.” This means that these devices are fantastic at saying moderately slip resistant floors are very slippery, and can also help the “liar for hire” provide data indicating that floors that aren’t slippery are more slippery than they are. They don’t work to properly assess the slip resistance of floors, in other words. A perfect courtroom device for professional liars that need to provide bogus data that defies reality.

ASTM F2508 was created by some of these “experts” to “validate” their instruments (since valid scientific instruments will all have international acceptance and published test methods). The instruments they use have recent peer-reviewed, published studies showing that they lack precision, and therefore they have no chance of publishing a test method anywhere on earth. The “science” and common sense behind this “verification procedure” ASTM F2508 for instruments that have proven to lack reliability and precision is absolutely laughable. More on the laughable joke that is ASTM F2508 is discussed in the link provided. It’s pure nonsense, and it’ll make you think the gatekeepers of our justice system (the judges allowing this nonsense into their courtrooms) may be lacking some serious intelligence.

According to ASTM F2508, our eyes may be considered valid scientific thermometers in an American court of law if they can discern that a cup of ice water is colder than a cup of visibly-steaming-hot water in front of us. ASTM F2508 really is that ridiculous and fraudulent. The fact that users of the Brungraber Mark IIIB were able to publish such nonsense through the ASTM and use it to fool American judges will make you fear for your life and for our broken justice system…I assure you.

ASTM F2508 will convince you that Camp #2 of slip resistance test “experts” are in the slip and fall game for one reason – to help win multi-million-dollar slip and fall lawsuits with fake data. They couldn’t care less about preventing slips and falls. They’ve spent three decades now doing all they can to stop good science from helping to stop slip and fall incidents in America. Shame on them, and shame on the leaders of the ASTM for allowing these games to rule the ASTM F13 committee.

The third camp consists of independent, third-party testing labs that can help architects, flooring manufacturers, and building owners avoid slip and fall injuries from occurring. This is the only camp interested in helping stop slip and fall injuries with reliable, proven, international science created after many decades of slip and fall research around the world using the pendulum tester (shown below with me helping a meat processing plant to stop slips amongst their workers and visitors).

The first camp of “non-profits” writes and publishes slip resistance test methods designed to provide a false sense of security to architects, specifiers and building owners. They published the now-withdrawn ASTM C1028 (withdrawn in 2014), the now-expired ANSI B101.1-2009 (expired in 2014) and now-expired ANSI B101.3-2014 (expired in 2019). These were all written largely by a “non-profit” that represents the flooring industry and puts their logo on the front of their test methods now. All these test methods had to go away because too many people had been shown just how bad these tests were at identifying slippery floors. These tests were telling us that the slipperiest of floors were not slippery at all. So the largest flooring “non-profit” had to publish another bogus test to help sell more slippery flooring in the USA…

Their latest is ANSI A326.3, which was also published to help flooring manufacturers fool consumers today into believing that flooring has “passed” a “slip resistance safety test,” when in fact the test method itself says on the first page of the published test method that it is not intended to be a safety test at all. So what is it for? “Comparing surfaces”, according to the first page of the test. At least they’re not lying, but they’re counting on architects and specifiers not comprehending the fact that this test definitely comes across as a “slip resistance safety test”, but the disclaimers all point to the fact that it is in NO way that. To use ANSI A326.3 as a “slip resistance safety test” is to ignore the dozens of disclaimers posted throughout the test method. It’s ignoring reality and just being dumb.

Did you think ANSI A326.3 was a “safety test”? Then you haven’t read (or you chose to ignore) page one of the test method. Or you were perhaps mislead by someone at a “lunch and learn” or some other form of propaganda designed around getting architects to think ANSI A326.3 is a valid “slip resistance safety test” when it clearly isn’t.

The ANSI A326.3 test states clearly that it, “can provide a useful comparison of surfaces, but does not predict the likelihood a person will or will not slip on a hard surface flooring material.” It also states throughout the test method that, “the measured DCOF value shall not be the only factor in determining the appropriateness of a hard surface flooring material for a particular application.” It states that several other factors must be considered (other than the DCOF value obtained), but does not offer any guidance on how to consider those “other factors”.

They leave architects and specifiers to assume that the numbers given in this test as “passing” mean that it has passed a “safety test”, when that’s not what the test says at all…and for good reason. The tile industry doesn’t want to get dragged into the thousands of slip and fall lawsuits across the country that pop up weekly. They didn’t mislead you into believing the floor you bought passed a “safety test”, but rather YOU chose to ignore what the test says it is. It is not at all claiming to be a safety test. You just chose to ignore that.

ANSI A326.3 (and it’s predecessor ANSI A137.1) is for “comparing surfaces”, not “assessing safety”. Many manufacturers, architects and municipal officials choose to ignore that fact. Elsewhere in the ANSI A326.3 official test method, it states, “Normative measured DCOF limit values are not provided in this standard for exterior applications, interior ramps and inclines, pool decks, shower floors, or flooring that is contaminated with material other than water or where minimal or no footwear is used.” So according to that disclaimer, they’re not saying that this test is relevant to a floor with spilled coffee, tea, sunscreen, dirt or cola on it…it’s just for floors with spilled water. Don’t blame the publishers of this test if there was dried floor soap, dust, or a million other contaminants on your floor. This test doesn’t take those realities into consideration. You’re on your own in the slip and fall lawsuit. They warned you. ANSI A326.3 is in no way arguing that it’s a “floor slip resistance safety test”.

Test results from this test say far too many slippery floors aren’t slippery, and that’s one reason why they tell you on page one that the test was NOT designed to be an assessment of safety. Want to use it as one anyway? Then YOU are also part of the slip and fall epidemic in the USA. For reliable slip resistance test safety assessments, the rest of the world has been using the pendulum dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) tester for decades, because it DOES assess the slip resistance safety of a floor. Below I’m testing the slip resistance safety of a “splash pad” with the pendulum tester at an amusement park.

The video below appeared on Bloomberg Businessweek several years ago, and features interviews with two of the “slip and fall game’s” biggest players in Camp #1. One of these two “experts” also makes a living in Camp #2 using test methods he publishes with his Camp #1 “non-profit”. His ability to publish test methods was taken away for a while, but now he’s back publishing bad test methods that are part of the problem.

The amount of disinformation in this video is scary and at times just strangely bizarre, so be warned. These are mostly not facts being presented in this video…just mostly bizarre interpretations of an alternate reality, perhaps…

No-one in this video began the slip and fall prevention business, and the BOT-3000E stopped being admissible in European standards in 2008, and there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that it was ever included as part of a published European test standard (just a couple of the “bizarre” things stated in the video by these Camp #1 “experts”). The BOT-3000E certainly isn’t included in Europe’s current slip resistance test standard, EN 16165, published in 2021 for dozens of countries including the United Kingdom, who has been studying how to prevent slips and falls since around the time these two “experts” were born. Again, many of the things said in this video are far from true. The people in Camp #1 live in a different reality where stopping slips is not as important as helping to sell slippery flooring.

For historical context, Percy A. Sigler at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards developed the pendulum dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) test method specifically for the assessment of pedestrian traction potential, and he started publishing his results in 1943 (before either of these “experts” were born, presumably). Today that research has resulted in America’s latest reliable and proven slip resistance test method, ASTM E303-22. It’s used by Camp #3 to help stop slip and fall incidents using reliable science used on five continents.

Static coefficient of friction (SCOF) testing has been widely debunked by the international community. See letters published on that blog post from leading experts on three continents stating that SCOF testing was abandoned long ago by the international floor slip testing community, and why. That blog post also contains links to peer-reviewed, published studies stating why SCOF testing was abandoned around the world (except in the USA) as a valid safety assessment decades ago in Europe, the UK, Australia and elsewhere.

Here is a detailed look into why SCOF testing is no longer internationally accepted as science. Even the Tile Council of North America (TCNA), who published ANSI A326.3 (which is not a “safety test”, remember?!) abandoned the SCOF test ASTM C1028 in 2014 because it was calling some of the most slippery floors on earth “not slippery” due to a problem with SCOF testing called “stiction”. SCOF testing does not work to assess safety. The world agrees on that. There’s only a few fools left in the world today still peddling that nonsense, and they’re clearly in Camp #1, and part of the problem.

SCOF tests measure how slippery a floor is to someone standing still (static) on the floor. People don’t slip while standing. The nonsense Camp #1 fools use to convince you that it is relevant has been proven in published studies to be nonsense. This peer-reviewed, published study said, “This study found that the manually-pulled 50-pound drag sled (as used in ASTM C-I028) was incapable of satisfactorily distinguishing between the wet slip resistance of ceramic tiles.” This was easily the most widely-used and popular SCOF test ever until it was abandoned by the ASTM and the Tile Council of America (TCNA) in 2014, except perhaps for the disgusting scam that is ASTM D2047.

ASTM’s D2047 is perhaps the biggest scam safety test ever created, as it is measuring how slippery a clean and dry floor is to someone standing still on it. Bizarre? No. Just a scam. UL 410 is the exact same test, using the James Machine.

Below is an SCOF test being performed after an internationally-accepted pendulum dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) test is performed on the same slippery flooring sample.

During the 1950’s and 1960’s the Greater London Council (GLC) in the United Kingdom (UK) used the pendulum DCOF slip resistance tester to evaluate 3,500 slip and fall incident sites, and the findings of that study were published in 1971. Further research in the UK led to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE, which is the English version of OSHA) publishing guidelines for what constitutes safe, moderately safe, and a slippery floor for pendulum test results.

ASTM C1028, ASTM F1677, ASTM F1678, ASTM F1679, ASTM F489, ANSI B101.1-2009, and several other worthless SCOF test methods over the years have either been withdrawn by the ASTM, or allowed to expire because they all were found to have no correlation between the real-world slip resistance of floors and the test results given by these tests. Some also lacked precision and could not identify slippery floors as slippery.

As it turns out, in the USA, perhaps the biggest money in the “slip and fall game” turns out to be creating fake data saying that polished, glazed, slippery-when-wet floors aren’t slippery at all. Unscrupulous people in the USA’s Camp #1 and Camp #2 have been trying to publish bad SCOF test methods for decades to make this easy money. Their test methods have all been withdrawn or allowed to expire except ASTM D2047 and ANSI B101.1-22. (That’s the same ANSI B101.1-2009 that was allowed to expire by the TCNA, ANSI and the manufacturer of the machine used in the test because it wasn’t identifying slippery floors as slippery.

Using all the bad SCOF test methods created by these first two camps of “expert liars for hire” and “non-profit organizations”, slippery floors are installed, defended, and never remediated, allowing more and more innocent pedestrians to suffer life-changing injuries upon them. They are the cause of the USA’s slip and fall epidemic, and why there are millions of personal injury attorney billboards that cover our land like flies on fresh bull dung.

ASTM E303-22 was updated in 2022 in the USA based on over 50 years of international slip and fall science. It can identify slippery floors in published research study after published research study after published research study so that they are either not installed in dangerous areas, or they can lead building owners to utilize absorbent anti-slip mats at entryways when it rains, have a gritty anti-slip floor coating applied to the floor, or have the floor acid-etched, for instance. Here’s a video showing the world’s most reliable slip resistance test, using the pendulum DCOF tester, which has a peer-reviewed, published test in over 50 nations.

This American “slip and fall game” is a deadly one, and it’s making lawyers and shady “experts” rich while innocent pedestrians in America suffer in hospital beds, and under the knife of well-paid surgeons who put rods in the victim’s backs and wrists, and replace their hips.

Asking flooring manufacturers to create their own slip and fall safety standards, after decades of them publishing nonsensical bogus SCOF tests is like asking your smiley neighborhood fox to build you a hen house. Would you wonder if that hen house might include a hidden trap door or two? You’d be a fool not to. The fox will be eating your chickens by the end of the week because you’re too foolish to know the difference between who is a trustworthy keeper of safety and who is not. Just like the fox building the hen house, the “non-profits” in USA’s Camp #1 want you to not read all the disclaimers in ANSI A326.3 and pretend it’s a reliable safety test. It’s not, and it tells you so.

The “experts” in Camp #2 want you to pretend science doesn’t need to be peer-reviewed, published, and accepted internationally. They are court jesters, and a major problem for our society in many ways. They make a mockery of our justice system, and they cause countless avoidable slip and fall injuries across the USA with their bad, unreliable science.

For reliable floor slip resistance testing safety based on over 50 years of independent research in over 50 nations, use ASTM E303-22 or any other of the pendulum DCOF test methods available around the world. Slip and fall incidents (they aren’t accidents because they are preventable using real science) are preventable. Using the European Union’s EN 16165: Annex B, Australia and New Zealand’s AS 4586, the United Kingdom’s BS 16165: Annex B, and other pendulum test methods from around the world, people can accurately assess the slip potential of a floor and respond accordingly.

Not every floor needs to be slip resistant, but every floor owner should know the truth about the slip resistance safety of their floors. Camp #1 and Camp #2 don’t want you to know the truth. Needlessly destroying people’s lives because you refuse to use real science to assess the floor slip resistance safety of your floors makes you a part of America’s slip and fall epidemic as well. Please use real science to assess slip safety, and reject the SCOF nonsense pushed by con artists and sociopaths in the USA in our Camp #1 and Camp #2 “floor slip resistance testing experts.” They are just really evil people, whether they choose to ignore it or not.

Sotter Engineering and Safety Direct America is clearly in Camp #3. We want to help stop the epidemic with reliable science. We can also offer solutions to slippery floors like anti-slip floor coatings and anti-slip floor tapes.

The post Exposing the Main Con Artists in the American Slip and Fall Game appeared first on Safety Direct America.

There are a lot of bad ways to fix a slippery floor. Home Depot, Amazon, Slip Doctors and others have anti-slip floor treatments that will be a temporary solution, and you’ll end up addicted to buying their products again and again to etch tiny pores in your flooring to maintain the slip resistance. That’s why these products recommend you get quarterly slip resistance testing done – this is the way they get their foot in your door to tell you to buy more of their “floor cleaner”, which is actually some some and more of the chemical etch they originally treated your slippery floor with.

SparkleTuff Anti-Slip Floor Coating applies a clear, glossy, gritty, very durable anti-slip coating to your floor. It looks beautiful, will definitely stop slips from happening, and will last for years and years without having to buy the product again and again. One coat and you’ll be good for many, many years – even in high foot traffic areas and areas with forklifts and other heavy machinery.

Don’t settle for water-based anti-slip coatings – they don’t last. SparkleTuff is a polysiloxane, which means it’s incredibly durable, has UV, scratch and stain resistance, and excellent slip resistance, too!

Looks great! Stops Slips! Try SparkleTuff Anti-Slip Floor Coating today to fix your slippery epoxy floor, slippery tub, slippery polished concrete, slippery tile, and any slippery surface you can imagine. It sticks to absolutely anything! Get more information and order some today at https://safetydirectamerica.com/diyabrasivefloorcoatings/

The post SparkleTuff Anti-Slip Floor Coating vs. temporary anti-slip floor treatments and water-based coatings appeared first on Safety Direct America.

SparkleTuff Anti-Slip Floor Coating was created to end the slip and fall injury epidemic we are seeing around the world. This anti-slip floor treatment will stick to anything with no special preparation needed (and that includes epoxy floors of all kinds) and is very slip resistant. It’s incredibly durable, easy to clean, and easy to apply. Now you can make your slippery tub, slippery epoxy garage, slippery bathroom tile or ANY slippery flooring slip resistant for many years to come.

Con artists and sociopaths created bad tests like ASTM D2047 to test the safety of floors (and these tests say all floors on earth are not slippery), but we use the floor dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) science that the world outside of the USA has been using for 50 years to help stop slips – the pendulum DCOF tester and ASTM E303. Using real science, I was able to create the longest lasting and most slip resistant product in the world today to make ANY floor slip resistant for years and years.

The post The Innovation Behind SparkleTuff Anti-Slip Floor Coating appeared first on Safety Direct America.

If you’re concerned you have a slippery floor, contact us for a test in our floor coefficient of friction lab or anywhere across America and beyond.

The post Slippery Lies, Gritty Truths: The Fight for Real Floor Safety appeared first on Safety Direct America.

Check out the fun video they made showing how it can turn any slippery floor or tub into a slip resistant floor. More information on our Anti-Slip Floor Coatings page.

The post SparkleTuff™ Anti-Slip Floor Coating put to the test by a third-party slip test lab appeared first on Safety Direct America.

In this very informative blog post, we discuss why the ASTM test method for the English XL, ASTM F1679, was withdrawn by the ASTM and rejected by OSHA in 2006. The ASTM gave the users of this fake test device ten years to provide a “reasonable precision statement”, and ten years wasn’t enough. The “provisional ASTM test method ASTM F1679″ was therefore withdrawn in 2006 after ten years of politely asking the champions of this American “liars for hire device” to provide some sort of documentation that it had precision from user to user. They failed. This instrument should therefore not be allowed in courtrooms as science. Why not bring in a clairvoyant who saw the accident in a dream? That would hold the same weight as data from an English XL VIT.

In his book Pedestrian Fall Safety Assessments: Improved Understanding on Slip Resistance Measurements and Investigations, In-Ju Kim  notes that the ASTM website stated in 2006 that F1677 and F1679 were withdrawn (see page 47 of his book) “for failure to include an approved precision statement.” He goes on to state that, “Using these two instruments, different labs showed very different answers on identical tiles amongst interlaboratory studies. These findings suggested that both test methods [for the Brungraber Mark II and English XL] were unreliable and unable to provide ‘reasonable precision statements’ for slip resistance evaluations.”

OSHA was using the fake science of the English XL and Brungraber Mark II to help stop steel workers from falling off steel beams on skyscrapers under construction to their death for several years, and they found it wasn’t working. The English XL was failing at finding suitable solutions for slippery wet steel dozens of stories in the air. The English XL was not stopping the deaths and injuries from occurring. OSHA then decided in 2005 to reject the English XL and Brungraber Mark II (which is the Brungraber Mark IIIB with a new paint job, essentially) as useful science.

“OSHA noted that the two ASTM standard test methods listed in Appendix B (ASTM F1677–96 and ASTM F1679–96) had not yet been validated through statements of precision and bias. (A precision and bias statement is documentation that the test method, in laboratory tests, has been shown to have an acceptable degree of repeatability and reproducibility).” This was after nine years of the “liars for hire” using these unproven and bogus devices trying to put together an “approved precision statement” for either one.

In another study published in 2003, the English XL, which measures the floor essentially in the exact same way as the Brungraber Mark IIIB, was inadequate. “When compared to the other test methods, the VIT tends to underestimate the wet slip resistance of smooth polished, glazed or surface protected tiles, while overestimating the slip resistance of tiles with a textured or profiled surface.” It also stated in the abstract of the publication that, “The pendulum tribometer (used according to AS/NZS 4586,with TRRL rubber, similar to ASTM E-303) provided more reliable results than the English XL Variable Incidence Tribometer (used according to ASTM F-1679).”

In another study discussed in the paper mentioned above, “Powers et al. [18] found that, when the [English XL] VIT was used to test a dry smooth vinyl composition tile, it overestimated the peak coefficient of friction by 30%, when compared to healthy adults walking across the same surface on the same force plate at comparable impact angles.” “They believed that the differences in the measured utilised coefficients of friction were most likely related to the fact that the [English XL] VIT test feet do not have the same vertical and horizontal accelerations of the pedestrian’s lower leg at heel strike.” The Brungraber Mark IIIB, again, is essentially the same instrument as the English XL, and it measures the slip potential of a floor in almost an identical way. From the same paper, “These results confirm earlier findings [24] that the [English XL] VIT results can depend on how the test foot is prepared.”

It has also been noted by this author in person when talking with certified English XL tribometer users that test results can also be influenced by how hard the instrument is pushed onto the floor. This can increase readings, giving favorable readings to a slippery floor for the insurance company trying to weasel out of paying a legitimate injury claim.

The English XL, according to its user instructions, uses static coefficient of friction (SCOF) testing. SCOF testing has been rejected over and over and over again both in the USA and in the international community of experts in this crucial field of study. ASTM C1028-07, ASTM F1677-96 (for the Brungraber Mark II), ASTM F1679-96 (for the English XL), ASTM F489 (for the James Machine), NFSI/ANSI B101.1-2009 (for the BOT-3000E) are all examples of SCOF tests that have either been withdrawn or allowed to expire because they were found to not be reliable in identifying slippery floors. This makes these bogus test devices great for “liars for hire” working for American insurance companies because they almost always find a floor not slippery, but these tests are no good when a building owner or architect wants to know the truth about the slip potential of a floor to help save lives and stop life-altering injuries from happening on their properties. Ask OSHA and the steel industry about that!

ASTM D2047 (and the same test called UL 410) seems to be the last remaining dinosaur in the world today that pretends that using SCOF testing on a clean and dry floor, which is essentially measuring whether a floor is slippery when someone is static (or standing still) on a clean and dry floor is a “safety assessment”. The people supporting ASTM D2047 as a “safety assessment” should be jailed for the deaths they have caused and the amount of people’s lives they have destroyed through this useless “safety” scam nonsense. No-one in the history of the world has ever slipped while standing still on a clean and dry floor. This is clearly a scam created and supported by very bad people. Anyone using data from ASTM D2047 is either incredibly dumb, or a con artist. There is no other explanation for a person calling this a “safety test”.

In a more recent study by Siegmund et al. called “Quantifying the uncertainty in tribometer measurements on walkway surfaces,” the authors state that data from the English XL and Brungraber Slip-Test Mark IIIB are “less accurate than they appear.” This is in part because the user is “a key component to the system,” influencing the numerical outcome of a test. “Every operator gets a different result.” Hired by the defense in a slip and fall lawsuit? These guys magically get the answer needed to say the floor is not slippery. When they’re hired by the plaintiff, they often ask to be left alone to do their testing because they may not be able to manipulate their device in real time to get a “slippery” result, but you can bet they will get that result for your law firm, as long as you’ve paid the large “retainer fee” they always charge American lawyers in slip and fall cases. Users of the English XL and Brungraber Mark IIIB are experts at getting you the answer you need to win your lawsuit, but these people don’t advertise testing services for tile manufacturers and building owners – they focus on where the BIG money is – slip and fall lawsuits!

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

Want to use real science to determine the slip potential of a floor using 50 years of research in over 50 nations? That’s easy – use the pendulum DCOF tester. In the USA, the test method is ASTM E303-22. In the European Union, it’s EN 16165:2021 and in the United Kingdom it is BS 16165:2021. In Australia and New Zealand, it’s called AS/NZS 4586. Here’s a list of other countries using this science to truly determine a floor’s slip potential, or slip resistance.

The post Published study after study shows the English XL (VIT) is not an adequate scientific floor slip resistance testing device, and the Brungraber Mark IIIB measures the floor in the same inadequate way appeared first on Safety Direct America.

First, we tried installing it in 300 bathtubs at a resort/hotel in Florida. Although the housekeeping staff were told that this gritty anti-slip floor coating was being applied and to not scrub it off the bottom of the tub, it only took a few weeks before each tub had been scrubbed clean of the anti-slip tub coating with abrasive pads and other cleaning techniques. It was just habit for the maids at this beach resort to scrub sand off the bottom of the tubs, and this gritty coating felt just like sand, so their instinct kicked in and they easily were able to scrub the water-based anti-slip floor coating down the drain. After all, it’s just water, some plastic beads to provide some minimal grip, and a couple other ingredients to hold the water-based floor coating to the tub. Not durable at all.

Before we realized what a bad idea water-based anti-slip floor coatings were, we installed it in a very upscale spa in a resort in Laguna Beach, California. They had heavy wooden chairs and chaise lounge chairs on the pool decks of this fancy spa (that had pools, a cold-plunge pool, and hot tubs), and every time a client dragged one of these chairs across the pool deck to get in and out of the sun, or join a friend, the coating scraped right up and off the floor, leaving an ugly mess to be cleaned up by staff right away. This started the coating peeling up EVERYWHERE. We had to grind that water-based anti-slip coating off with a polishing pad only days after spending all night applying it.

We also applied it to our bathtub at home and noticed it didn’t provide much grip. It was better than the super slippery tub, but even after applying several coats, the tub was still pretty slippery. You get what you pay for!

These water-based tub and floor coatings are usually tested with bogus tile-industry-created tests like ANSI A326.3 to say slippery floors aren’t slippery, or ASTM D2047, both of which are not international science-backed safety assessments. For that, you need the pendulum tester, shown below, which has a published test method in over 50 nations and a pendulum test value (PTV) over 36. In the USA, the pendulum DCOF test method is called ASTM E303-22. If someone is trying to sell an anti-slip floor coating without a PTV rating, and saying it’s “above a DCOF 0f 0.42” or “above an SCOF of 0.50” or some other nonsense, their scamming you.

If you’re looking for a slippery and short-lasting anti-slip floor floor or tub coating, then buy some water and some plastic beads in a bottle with a couple other chemicals. But be forewarned, you may need to prep the floor with another chemical for this water-based nonsense to stick to your floor. The project may take SEVERAL trips to the hardware store before you’re done!

But if you’re looking for real anti-slip floor protection that will endure for a decade or two, then there are low VOC and very safe solutions available these days. The technology has come a long way lately and big international companies and government agencies are buying up SparkleTuff Anti-Slip Floor Coating by the gallons and gallons for their ramps, pool decks, tubs, manufacturing facilities, bathrooms, and high-risk flooring areas.

The most popular no-skid floor coating is SparkleTuff Anti-Slip Floor Coating, available exclusively through Safety Direct America. It’s safe to apply, very slip resistant, and very durable. It’s not some water and some plastic beads. Don’t get conned by slick adds and fake awards for water-based anti-slip floor products – you’ll just end up applying them again and again week after week until your bottle is gone, then you’ll eventually learn what we learned: you get what you pay for! Don’t pay for water and plastic beads when your safety is on the line!

If you’re looking to save yourself from a life-changing slip and fall injury, don’t pay for a cheap water-based non-skid floor coating. It could cost you a serious injury, or in the case of slippery tubs and pool decks, it may cost you your life!

The post Water-Based Anti-Slip Floor Coatings – a bad idea appeared first on Safety Direct America.

It has excellent UV resistance, chemical and abrasion resistance, and it’s very slip resistant. It’ll stick to absolutely anything without any special preparation to the floor. Just make sure it’s clean and dry. This includes polyurea, epoxy, polyaspartic, glass, tile, stone, wood, slippery tubs, and literally ANYTHING else you can name. Here’s where you can purchase SparkleTuff Anti-Slip Floor Coating.

However, getting rid of SparkleTuff Anti-Slip Floor and Tub Coating is not as easy as applying it. You can have light foot traffic on SparkleTuff after 6-8 hours of curing time at 70 degrees and 50% humidity, but once it has had the 48-72 hours necessary for this anti-slip floor coating to become rock hard, then you won’t be able to dissolve it with any chemical you can find at a hardware store or anywhere else.

Here are a couple ways of getting rid of it:

1. Grind it off with a heavy-duty floor polishing pad or diamond pad.

or

2. Soften and scrape: you can soften the coating by using heat, letting acetone soften it, but here you need to be very careful as acetone is flammable. You will need to ventilate the area well when working with this very flammable chemical. You can also try a strong paint remover like Goof Off FG653 Professional Strength Remover to soften it up a bit so you can try scraping it off.

If you still haven’t had success, it’s likely because your solvent (acetone or Goof Off FG653) is evaporating before it has a chance to really do it’s work in softening up this very durable coating. Try applying a heavy amount of the solvent, cover the area with tin foil, and then tape up the edges with duct tape or something similar so the solvent isn’t able to evaporate. Then leave the solvent under the tinfoil for a couple hours, remove the tape and tinfoil, and that will likely have softened it up enough to scrape it off.

Spills

If you’ve spilled a bit and it hasn’t hardened and cured yet, you might find Toluene can help clean up small spills, but we recommend you follow the application instructions carefully, do the job right the first time, and be careful to tape off areas and not spill this non-slip floor coating while applying it.

Once properly applied, your slip problems will be solved for many, many years to come!

Here’s some advice on cleaning anti-slip floors.

The post Removing SparkleTuff Anti-Slip Floor Coating from your Floor appeared first on Safety Direct America.

“Hello Access Board,

This page https://www.access-board.gov/ada/vehicles/appendix-advisory-guidance/ discussing what makes a floor slip resistant discusses values from test standards that have long been withdrawn and no longer exist, and that makes the ADA and Access Board clearly part of the problem in regards to the slip and fall epidemic in the USA. It is your responsibility to clean this page up immediately because people’s lives are at stake. I will be posting this letter to you online to let the world know that the United States Access Board is helping cause slip and fall accidents and should be held responsible for injuries to all people who slip and fall on a floor in the USA.

The coefficient of friction of flooring is no longer assessed (by scrupulous people) using static coefficient of friction (SCOF) testing methods because slip and fall accidents do not happen when a person is in a static position on a floor. That means you’re measuring how slippery a floor is to someone who’s standing still on the floor. For that reason, the ASTM was forced to withdraw ASTM F1677 and ASTM F1679 in 2006 (you can see that the ASTM now sells those standards as “historical” standards on their website, which means they are no longer active test methods.) That was almost 20 years ago. Here the reasons for those test methods being withdrawn are discussed in greater detail: https://safetydirectamerica.com/how-to-get-the-slip-and-fall-expert-witness-testimony-from-an-english-xl-vit-and-brungraber-mark-iiib-user-thrown-out-of-court/

That is where the number 0.50 SCOF came from, and these were the people that were lying in courts back in 2006 for insurance companies. They were the people that decided that 0.5 was the number that they were shooting for when defending slippery floors in court. The Access Board is clearly now helping insurance companies and the people still using these withdrawn test methods in their pursuit of getting slippery floors and the life-changing injuries they cause “off the hook”. The ADA is the problem because you are spreading misinformation.

The shady characters defending slippery floors in courts for big money did not create that 0.50 SCOF recommendation as a “safety threshold” based on any research into slips and falls, but rather they came up with that number because they found they could easily get a result above that number of ANY floor with their devices with withdrawn standards, making it possible for them to make BIG money defending slippery floors in courtrooms across the USA. The ASTM and OSHA figure this out in 2005. See here: https://safetydirectamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Fed-register-Vol-71-No-11-04153575xA9B4D.pdf OSHA and the ASTM were in agreement that the instruments these people were using were not based on science and were causing avoidable slips, leading to too many deaths. The ASTM withdrew the standards and OSHA stopped relying on them for safety assessments. You are now the last problem that must clear up the misinformation you’re spreading. The United States Access Board is getting people killed.

The 0.60 SCOF number (and 0.80 for ramps) was a lie spread by the America tile industry (through their “Tile Council of North America” – or TCNA) using their now-withdrawn test method ASTM C1028. See https://www.c1028.info/

That test method was found to be a scam and almost every floor on earth was above a 0.60. This helped tile manufacturers sell their slippery flooring. For that reason, the ASTM withdrew the ASTM C1028 SCOF test method in 2014. That’s well over 10 years ago. You can verify that on the ASTM website as well. It is now a “historical” standard and is no longer in use.

Floors are now tested reliably for slip resistance using ASTM E-303-22 and the pendulum DCOF tester. The pendulum tester has a published, peer-reviewed test method in over 50 nations (including the USA) and it is agreed upon across the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, and many, many other nations that a pendulum test value (PTV) of 36 is considered to be a “low slip potential” on level floors in most situations. This is based originally on research done in the 1971 where 3,500 slip and fall incidents were investigated in the United Kingdom with the pendulum tester, and the 50 years of research that followed that initial research around the world. Here is more information on the pendulum tester: https://safetydirectamerica.com/pendulumfloorsliptesting/

The ASTM E303-22 test method was updated in 2022 to more closely resemble the test method that was updated in 2021 for the European Union and the United Kingdom, and the test method published in Australia and New Zealand in 2014. The “safety threshold of 36 (which equates to a DCOF of 0.37) is agreed upon around the world, and the fact that the Access Board is unaware of that clearly makes the irresponsible recommendations you make on your website a serious problem for pedestrians in the USA.

The advice mentioned in the previous two paragraphs would help stop slip and fall accidents in the United states. However, your recommendations are part of the slip and fall problem here. Your recommendations simply confuse people and send them on a wild goose chase looking for test methods that have long been withdrawn and safety thresholds that no longer exist with modern-day reliable test devices.

Here is a letter from the Access Board written to my father many years ago stating that you had taken down all of your badly-informed misinformation: https://safetydirectamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Access-Board-to-Sotter.pdf After writing this letter claiming you were not responsible for the misinformation being spread about 0.50 SCOF and 0.60 SCOF being “safety thresholds”, you went back and re-published this dangerous nonsense.

You continue to create a problem on this page https://www.access-board.gov/ada/vehicles/appendix-advisory-guidance/ where you give really misinformed information about test methods that have been withdrawn long ago. YOU MUST FIX THIS IMMEDIATELY.

When the tile industry was no longer able to say that all of their tiles were not slippery based on ASTM C1028 (since the test had been withdrawn by the ASTM), the American tile manufacturers (and floor polishers and concrete polishers) needed a new way to claim all of their floors were not slippery, and the result of that was publishing ANSI A326.3 with a “safety threshold” of 0.42 DCOF. That number as well is not based on any science or research into slip and fall accidents, but rather they have found that nearly every floor on earth is able to meet this safety threshold. That is where the number came from. Recommending that test method and that safety criterion would be clearly adding to the problem and the confusion in the United States, leading to even more preventable life-altering and life-ending injuries to innocent pedestrians.

The world long ago decided that the pendulum tester is the best way to assess the slip risk of a floor in the lab and in the field, and we now rely on 50 years of research in well over 50 nations to help us identify slippery floors and remedy them. The Access Board continues to spread misinformation that gets innocent people injured and killed on slippery floors.

Please fix your website right away as people are going to emergency rooms daily for slip and fall accidents across the country, and you are clearly part of the problem that is creating the slip and fall epidemic here. The information you are providing to people is the problem itself.

Moving forward, I will advise all personal injury attorneys to include The Access Board as part of the reason why the slip happened, and The Access Board should therefore be held financially responsible for any damages. As America gets older and more and more Americans begin to have limited mobility due to their advanced age, this is now more important than ever. You are now part of why elderly Americans are dying in hospital beds after slipping on a slippery floor, cracking their hip, and then dying from an infection. This happens far too often, and the Access Board is doing all they can to increase the problem.

Let me know when you have fixed your misinformation campaign, so I consider removing this letter from my website. Thank you.

Best regards, 

John C Sotter

Vice President

https://safetydirectamerica.com/

https://safetydirectamerica.com/floor-friction-testing/

Cell: (949)933-6971

Lab address: 26705 Loma Verde

Mission Viejo, CA 92691″

Let’s see if anyone at the Access Board can do their job and stop getting innocent people injured and killed.

The post The United States Access Board (ADA) is clearly complicit in the American slip and fall epidemic appeared first on Safety Direct America.

ASTM D2047 was first published by the ASTM in 1953 using the James Machine to assess the “safety” of Floor Wax and Floor Polish. It was never intended to be used to assess the safety of floors, but because about 99% of floor waxes back in the 1950’s “passed” this nonsensical “test” with greater than a 0.50 SCOF (static coefficient of friction), flooring manufacturers quickly jumped on board with using this irrelevant test to say their slippery tile wasn’t slippery.

The ASTM D2047 “safety test” measures how slippery a floor is to someone standing still (static) on the floor, and the floor is clean and dry. How many slip and fall injuries have occurred while someone was standing still on a freshly cleaned and dried floor? Exactly zero. Since the dawn of humankind, there have been zero such injuries recorded in this situation. So why run this test? To fool flooring consumers into believing your flooring has passed some sort of “safety test”, but this test is nothing short of a scam. It doesn’t matter how slippery a floor is to someone standing still on a clean floor. This doesn’t assess safety in ANY way.

ASTM F489 was withdrawn in 2005, and that test was for testing the “safety” of all types of floors with the exact same test method using the same instrument – the James Machine. (There’s a newer version on this lame device in the world today, but it’s still running the exact same worthless test.) The ASTM F489 had to be withdrawn because it was identifying every floor on earth to be “not slippery”, or above the 0.50 SCOF threshold for safety. This threshold for safety of 0.50 isn’t based on any peer-reviewed international science. They picked that number because every floor polish and flooring in America was above that number, presumably.

The ASTM C1028 SCOF test was also withdrawn in 2014 by the ASTM because it also was measuring how slippery a floor was to someone standing still on the floor (not walking across it), and it was found over many years to be utterly worthless in assessing safety. All SCOF tests are not valid for assessing safety because no-one slips while standing still. These tests are all scams perpetrated and created by the American tile industry to lull flooring consumers into a false sense of security, and anyone using this scam should be considered a scam artist, a con artist, or a fool. SCOF testing was debunked around the world as a “safety assessment” long ago.

The NFSI/ANSI B101.1-2009 SCOF test was allowed to expire in 2014 because it was designed to mimic ASTM C1028, which was withdrawn that same year. B101.1 was great at saying slippery floors weren’t slippery, so the manufacturer of the BOT-3000E allowed the ANSI/NFSI B101.1 test to expire because it was making the instrument used in the test look worthless. If it couldn’t identify any floors as slippery (even when the building owner is getting complaints and slip injuries regularly on the floor), then why spend $9,000.00 on a worthless device? Perhaps if you’re an insurance company that wants to deny every slip and fall claim and say no floor on earth is slippery? That’s a pretty sadistic scam for profit!

Here’s a letter from the Secretary of the United Kingdom Slip Resistance Group explaining that SCOF testing is nonsense and was abandoned long ago in the European Union and United Kingdom. Here’s a letter from the leading floor slip resistance testing expert in Florida explaining that SCOF testing is nonsense and dangerous. Here is a letter from perhaps the most well-known, most well-published and most well-respected expert on earth in the field of floor slip resistance testing in Australia saying SCOF testing is pure nonsense.

The ASTM E303-22 was updated in 2022 and uses dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) to truly assess the slip and fall safety of a floor using 50 years of international science and research conducted in over 50 nations. Hundreds of thousands of floors across the world have been investigated using the pendulum DCOF tester after slip and fall accidents have been recorded on them, and hundreds of thousands of floors that have had no slips recorded on them have been tested as well. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the United Kingdom (the UK’s version of OSHA) has published guidance on interpreting results from the pendulum DCOF test, and so has Australia and New Zealand. Simply put: the pendulum DCOF test is the science used around the world for 50 years to assess the real-world slip potential of a floor.

ASTM F1677 and ASTM F1679 were both SCOF tests that were withdrawn in 2006. These instruments were found to be utterly worthless in assessing safety and were therefore rejected by both the ASTM and OSHA around 2005-2006. These instruments (the English XL and Brungraber Mark II VIT) are still used today, despite their standards being withdrawn due to a lack of an approved precision statement being provided to the ASTM from the users of these devices. They are used by expert slip and fall “liars for hire” to create bogus “floor safety data” for insurance companies and their highly-paid lawyers who defend slip and fall lawsuits every day. They are almost always working for the defense.

Innocent people have been horribly and permanently injured by slippery floors that were inappropriately installed in places that get wet or otherwise lubricated in use. The Brungraber Mark II people changed the color of their device and put grooves in the rubber slider used on it – like a car tire has grooves to improve traction – and now uses a device in court that has no published standard in ANY nation – the new and improved (if you’re good at lying under oath) Brungraber Mark IIIB. It’s the same device as the Brungraber Mark II measuring SCOF using fake science with a new name and a new paint job. These expert “liars for hire” claim ASTM F2508 “verifies” their instrument and therefore they don’t need to prove to any standards-publishing organization that it’s a real scientific device with precision. This way they can continue to make BIG bucks lying for defense lawyers in high-dollar slip and fall lawsuits, but F2508 is a scam they published themselves after conducting a secretive ” tribometer study” themselves. Saying F2508 “verifies” their instrument is akin to saying the horizon verifies the earth is flat. It’s nonsense, and here’s more information on that scam.

All the American SCOF tests (ASTM C1028, NFSI/ANSI B101.1, ASTM F489, ASTM F1677, and ASTM F1679, to name a few), like the soon-to-be-withdrawn ASTM D2047 (we’re working on getting this withdrawn presently and won’t quit until it’s done) are all scams that are not for assessing safety at all. These tests were created by highly-paid expert slip and fall “liars for hire”, tile salespeople, and flooring manufacturers to create lies for consumers and juries. Shame on them! They get innocent people horribly injured with fake science to make a quick buck on slippery flooring and save insurance companies from paying out on valid claims. Don’t fall for the ASTM D2047 scam, or the UL 410 scam – it’s exactly the same scam.

Need reliable floor slip resistance testing so you don’t install a slippery floor and need to hire an expert “liar for hire” to get you out of a legitimate slip and fall injury claim? We’re here to help! We’ve been specializing in reliable floor slip resistance testing for about a quarter of a century.

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