Legal Expert Witness
RSA has several senior team members with more than two decades road safety, traffic and transport experience. These team members have extensive experience supporting legal firms with expert legal advice on matters within the traffic and transport sector. Each team member prepares dozens of expert legal reports each year.
RSA’s team is typically engaged with matters involving serious or fatal injuries on roads, road-related areas such as paths and carparks and publicly accessible spaces. In legal matters involving injury claims from road incidents, expert legal advice from qualified road safety auditors is crucial in establishing whether road design, infrastructure deficiencies, or regulatory non-compliance contributed to the incident. Road safety auditors bring deep technical expertise in assessing roads, paths, carparks, and other publicly accessible spaces against established standards, guidelines, and Safe System principles. They can identify hazards such as poor signage, inadequate lighting, insufficient sight distances, or unsafe pedestrian and cyclist facilities—factors that may have played a role in the incident. Their expert analysis provides independent, evidence-based insights that help legal teams demonstrate whether a road authority, developer, or other entity failed to meet its duty of care. This can strengthen causation arguments, support liability claims, and assist in securing fair compensation for injured parties. Additionally, road safety auditors ensure that findings align with legal and technical requirements, making expert reports and testimony credible and defensible in court. Without this expertise, critical design and safety failures may go unrecognised, weakening a plaintiff’s case.
RSA’s approach to expert legal advice typically involves:
- Review of the site, including event reconstruction if required;
- Preparation of an investigation report;
- Assessment of contributing factors such as signage, delineation, sightlines and traffic management schemes;
- Assessment of obligations within the Road Management Acts;
- Assessment of road design deficiencies including vertical and horizontal geometry;
- Assessment of crash barrier set-ups and ‘fitness for purpose’; and
- Assessment of crashes and incidents within road work environments.
Case Study: The Impact of Expert Witness Testimony in Road Safety Cases
Example: A Fatal Pedestrian Crash in an Urban Environment
Background: A pedestrian was fatally struck while crossing a multi-lane arterial road at night. The plaintiff legal firm engaged RSA to determine whether road design deficiencies contributed to the crash.
RSA’s Investigation:
- Conducted an on-site assessment and identified insufficient street lighting and poorly placed pedestrian crossings as contributing factors.
- Reviewed local speed limits, traffic volumes, and historical crash data, revealing multiple previous pedestrian incidents at the same location.
- Analysed Safe System Principles, showing that lower speed limits, additional signage, and improved lighting could have significantly reduced the risk of fatal injury.
Outcome:
RSA’s expert report and testimony demonstrated that the road authority had failed to provide a safe pedestrian environment, contributing to the crash. The case resulted in a favourable outcome for the plaintiff, leading to both compensation for the victim’s family and safety improvements at the site.
Case Studies
North East Link, Victoria
At project initiation with staging layout designs, RSA analysed broad key safety issues
Princes Highway Duplication, Kilmany, Victoria
As part of the 12km Stage 3 duplication of Princes Highway East (Traralgon to Sale), RSA carried out desktop and
Taylors Road Upgrade, Bonnie Brook, Victoria
New or upgraded roads in existing or growth areas generate the need for road safety audits of plans and staging
