PRISM Engineering's Traffic Engineering Expert Witness Discipline is Expanding

Grant P. Johnson, Registered Traffic Engineering in the State of California, has been taking on numerous expert witness cases for defense and plaintiff cases.  A champion of safety, he has a common sense approach to finding the details needed to win the case on the merits of the evidence and potential for defense or liability.  

see EXPERT WITNESS in Traffic Engineering page

An extension of Traffic Engineering, 

Expert Witness Research and Testimony

• ​     is about having intimate knowledge of the regulations,
•       and details, and precedent for Traffic Engineering standards.

Grant P. Johnson, TE is a registered Traffic Engineer in the State of California, the only state in the union with this special distinction.  Now a requirement of many government jurisdictions to qualify traffic studies, the Traffic Engineer is being asked to sign documents as an authority on the subject of all things pertaining to traffic and regulation.  In Expert Witness testimony and research, the title of Traffic Engineer enhances credibility.   ​
    
​He is currently working on several cases as an Expert Witness throughout Northern, Central, and Southern California cities and counties, including working with Caltrans.

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Grant Johnson has current "hands-on" experience in all things traffic engineering.  When making a visit to an accident site, he gathers the best information and evidence possible.

As a commercial pilot for drone cameras licensed by the FAA, he is fully registered and highly skilled with a flying camera that he uses for commercial purposes. As an information gathering tool, he has found that properly placed drone footage can significantly enhance understanding of the situation with unique visual perspective.

Taking video of streets, intersections, parking lots, using multiple drones simultaneously if needed, he can get all needed angles and make a better assessment of the technical situation, from a bird's eye view, as well as the drivers perspective in the car. 

The elevated video(s) can show signal operations from multiple approaches simultaneously and capture signal malfunctions or even mis-programming.

From a defense standpoint, he can determine the proper design of intersections, signal systems, or freeway ramps, etc.  Using the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or the MUTCD as a starting point, he can defend a properly installed traffic control on a street system.

He has the experience needed to detect and determine proper/improper design or installation of traffic control devicesby observing from a high level view, combined with drivers eye ground level video, to see how drivers see the situation(s) and react to a poorly designed or outdated installation.

• Do drivers consistently run red lights at or near the accident location?
• Do they disregard traffic control of another type, such as a stop sign?
• Is the design poorly thought out or implemented?

In Marin County, Mr. Johnson worked with County Counsel and the Department of Public Works to study and determine the problems at the Four Corners intersection, where a lawsuit was brought against the county after an accident. PRISM Engineering worked with the county staff to provide a new design for the intersection that addressed existing problems and created a more modern and safe standard, for not more than the cost of paint and some minor engineering design fees.

PRISM's custom design actually helped to slow speeds through installation of special striping and pavement markings, using the available pavement space to relocate striping, adjust the stop bars to better locations, and better define the travel pathways (less ambiguous) to achieve smoother flows of vehicles and bikes. PRISM creates movies from our videos to clearly show the complete picture from many viewpoints.

Using this capability to quickly make the movie, we can showcase how drivers behave in the accident location, good or bad behavior, which helps to establish the patterns with visual proof.   All accident records in the vicinity are researched to see if there are significant data or not, to show a pattern of similar accidents.  

Mr. Johnson is an expert in regulation and design standards such as the MUTCD and related materials and manuals on lighting, road and intersection design. He can determine if a roadway has been properly or improperly designed, and also knows the traffic engineering law and principles of safety related to all traffic control devices in use today.  He also personally drives through the site and inspects traffic conditions and sight distance from the drivers point of view, to make a determination if there are factors related to safety compromises or safety enhancements for all drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists.

His engineering work in China enhanced specific skills for great attention to detail.  In the physical transportation world, he has extensive experience in checking complex plans for construction of China's major High Speed Rail projects dealing with regulations and standards and safety conditions.

Given the top inspection responsibility there on site as the Chief Site Engineer (CSE), he was in responsible charge of all quality control and safety on a 70 kilometer section of high speed rail construction, a new HSR rail line connecting Beijing to Shenyangin Northern China.  The job included:

1. Overseeing the entire construction process,
2. Having "Stop Order" authority over construction companies there, to shut down construction if standards were not met or if safety was ignored
3. Closely examining and reviewing construction and design plan sheets in the office, to be prepared in the field to inspect specific high speed rail projects in the entire 70km section, including tunnel, bridge, box culvert, open cut, piles and piers, and foundations construction.

As a part of the job, surprise inspections in the field were conducted to make sure plans were followed closely by construction companies, and to document all activities and exceptions for correction by photo and video on the numerous variety of construction sites. Regular formal meetings were held with the national HSR authorities in the Communist government, where he reported on compliance on the site and for all aspects of construction and safety protocols, as well as quality of materials.  He kept a daily journal, a spreadsheet database, and prepared weekly extensive reports written in English and in Chinese Mandarin officially documenting all of this information for the government.

​Grant says: "The work was challenging and trained my eye for looking for all details of transportation construction, and installations of what was done right and what was done incorrectly."

When I examine the transportation systems in the US where an accident took place, whether it be a bike, a pedestrian, a train, freeway, city street, or two-lane highway, I'm looking for the big picture of whether the traffic control or road design or construction was done properly with safety in mind, according to the accepted design standards such as the AASHTO Green Book, the MUTCD, or from Engineering Judgment by Inspection and Analysis and Experience.