Retail stores seem to care more about human life than DOTs
Private corporations are held accountable for safety in ways that would bankrupt public agencies.
Property managers know drivers are dangerous. Here are a couple of Google Streetview images deep inside a shopping center. Publix and Target aren’t doing this to protect their storefronts from bumps and scrapes. They know that if they knowingly leave pedestrians in harm’s way, they’ll pay.
Put aside whether or not big corporations operate using a moral compass. We all know they’re profit driven, and no business wants to end up in court paying out millions of dollars. Even if the only reason Publix installs bollards in front of picnic tables is to save court fees, fine. They keep their money, we keep our limbs.
Before I tell you, take a guess how many times a day someone in America plows their vehicle into a storefront.
100 times a day, a driver creates a drive-thru out of a walk-in. And the craziest thing is data collectors think that number is likely low. Check out this story from Chicago reported earlier this year. A driver was pulling up to park at 7-Eleven and didn’t stop. He pinned a man to the wall, causing the man to lose both his legs.
This is a national problem, that people are dying, people are losing the limbs. So the idea that a corporation would be allowed to keep this from the public just was not something we were going to stand for.
—James Power, attorney for injured man
The judge said the store owners have a duty to protect pedestrians from drivers. Before starting the trial, 7-Eleven coughed up $91 million for the victim, the largest settlement of this type in Illinois history.
This accident doesn't happen if somebody had spent about $800.
—Rob Reiter, co-founder of Storefront Safety Council
The ruling seems obvious when you learn all they need to do is put in some bollards. Those beauties stop a vehicle on impact. It’s not just 7-Eleven. In fact, according to Storefront Safety Council data, only 6% of these crashes happen at convenience stores. Drivers will still be drivers, but at least something physical like a concrete post reduces the risk of injuring and killing people.
Of course you should be outraged that this was happening all the time. But where else are drivers hitting people with alarming frequency? On public streets. The infrastructure owned and operated by agencies that claim to serve the public interest by treating safety as their top priority.
Imagine if the owners of transportation systems were held to the same standard as owners of stores.
Imagine if sidewalks weren’t right up on the edge of 50 mph traffic, and intersections didn’t take 30 seconds of terror to cross.
Imagine if bike lanes on busy streets were given adequate separation and physical protection from motor vehicles.
I’m sure you’ve heard a planner, engineer, or politician pass the blame when confronted with known traffic hazards. It’s true that they can’t remove all risk from all streets for all people. But it’s false to claim they’re powerless. When staff, consultants, and local leaders are presented with a safe option and a dangerous option, they routinely choose the one that leads to more death and destruction.
I cover these issues at length on Urbanism Speakeasy. This particular post isn’t to outline the dozens of ways infrastructure experts could improve pedestrian safety on public streets. My purpose is to get you thinking about why private corporations are expected to protect human life while public agencies are given a pass.
Maybe lawsuits are the only way to shock the industry into making public safety a higher priority than vehicular delay.
Bollards, street trees, etc transfer the risk from pedestrians to automobile occupants. That’s why traffic engineers hate them.