About Lou...

Lou is a licensed mechanical engineer and an ACTAR accredited accident reconstructionist, and also serves on the Governing Board of Directors for ACTAR. He instructs Northwestern University’s Motorcycle Collision Reconstruction course and authored their textbook chapter on the same topic. He has testified in multiple state courts, as well as Federal court, and has presented at conferences both nationally and internationally. As a forensic engineer and former Expert level road-racer, he has a unique understanding of motorcycle dynamics and capabilities. In addition, Lou has a strong understanding of rider behavior, having conducted research analyzing the performance of motorcycle riders including: hazard response time, glance behaviors, and deceleration capability. A portion of these results are documented in the paper, “Glancing and Stopping Behavior of Motorcyclists and Car Drivers at Intersections,” which became a TRB Transportation Record in 2011. 

He’s authored several other publications in the field of motorcycle accident reconstruction including, “Motorcycle Sliding Friction for Accident Reconstruction,” which was published in the proceedings of the 10th International Motorcycle Safety Conference held in Cologne, Germany. This research was the first to analyze sliding motorcycle friction using modern GPS data acquisition technology, and the first to document the sliding friction of motorcycles equipped with frame sliders. 

In 2016, Lou was invited to direct motorcycle crash testing at the largest accident reconstruction conference held to date, The World Reconstruction Exposition, where his team conducted the first public crash-testing of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Those efforts resulted in the development of updated motorcycle impact-speed equations, which were published by SAE in 2018. He has been invited to be a keynote speaker at the upcoming WREX conference in 2023.

Lou holds a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from California State University in Fresno. Click here to download his current CV.