A sad and tragically completely preventable tragedy at a Costco in London, Ontario Canada has claimed the life of a six-year-old girl named Addison Hall and severely injured three members of her family.
" At noon Friday, a red Monte Carlo driven by a woman in her sixties suddenly backed in to the entrance way of the busy big-box store – reversing between two pillars outside before smashing through the glass doors and inside the building.
The car struck Addison, her 3-year-old sister Miah and their pregnant mom Danah McKinnon Bozek – all who remained in hospital all weekend -- before crashing to a halt against the pole between the next set of doors leading into the store.
Miah is still listed in critical condition as is a baby delivered by emergency caesarian-section on Friday. McKinnon Bozek's condition has been upgraded to fair, police said on the weekend. Two other people who were hurt in the crash, as well as the driver of the car, have been released from hospital." (See the excellent overage from the London Free Press HERE)
" At noon Friday, a red Monte Carlo driven by a woman in her sixties suddenly backed in to the entrance way of the busy big-box store – reversing between two pillars outside before smashing through the glass doors and inside the building.
The car struck Addison, her 3-year-old sister Miah and their pregnant mom Danah McKinnon Bozek – all who remained in hospital all weekend -- before crashing to a halt against the pole between the next set of doors leading into the store.
Miah is still listed in critical condition as is a baby delivered by emergency caesarian-section on Friday. McKinnon Bozek's condition has been upgraded to fair, police said on the weekend. Two other people who were hurt in the crash, as well as the driver of the car, have been released from hospital." (See the excellent overage from the London Free Press HERE)
How was this accident preventable? Because Costco does not take simple and affordable steps to protect their customers and employees. Injury accidents like these are not rare for Costco (Maui and Burbank being obvious previous examples) but for some reason the company continues to choose not to follow the example of other leading retailers like Sam's Club, Target, WalMart and many others who install steel bollards or other protective devices to prevent out of control vehicles from crashing into their store entrances. And as was the case in the London Ontario store, even when bollards are installed, they are installed NOT to prevent these types of accidents, but rather to prevent customers from pulling vehicles up onto the apron to load up their purchases.
GOAL POST BOLLARDS
As the photo above shows, bollards that are installed ten feet apart may prevent parallel parking, but an oncoming car can easily navigate between them. A sedan like the Monte Carlo in this incident is only a little over six feet wide -- four foot tall bollards ten feet apart look more like goal posts to pass between than barriers meant to stop an out of control vehicle. Their concern that carts full of merchandise be free to pass between the bollards apparently outweighs their concern that vehicles can crash into customers and employees at the store entrances.
Why does Costco (with sales of over $100 billion annually, with 465 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico, 87 in Canada, and a number of others in Europe and Asia) continue to put customers and employees at risk? By not taking simple and very affordable steps to prevent them, such foreseeable accidents will continue. I can only think of three reasons; they do not care about their people or reputation, or, they are completely unaware of these incidents at the corporate level, or, they have made a budgetary decision to not spend the $10,000 or $15,000 per store it would take to prevent them and take their chances that injury claims and wrongful death lawsuits will cost less over the long haul.
I hope that some enterprising member of the press in London, Ontario gets a chance to ask a corporate officer or member of the Costco Board of Directors why they allow a known hazardous condition to persist at their stores. I hope that a store manager or someone in the risk management department has the courage to ask the question. I am sure that there are any number of attorneys who would jump at the chance to ask that question.
I for one would like to know the answer. And I am sure that Addison Hall's family would like to know as well.
GOAL POST BOLLARDS
As the photo above shows, bollards that are installed ten feet apart may prevent parallel parking, but an oncoming car can easily navigate between them. A sedan like the Monte Carlo in this incident is only a little over six feet wide -- four foot tall bollards ten feet apart look more like goal posts to pass between than barriers meant to stop an out of control vehicle. Their concern that carts full of merchandise be free to pass between the bollards apparently outweighs their concern that vehicles can crash into customers and employees at the store entrances.
Why does Costco (with sales of over $100 billion annually, with 465 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico, 87 in Canada, and a number of others in Europe and Asia) continue to put customers and employees at risk? By not taking simple and very affordable steps to prevent them, such foreseeable accidents will continue. I can only think of three reasons; they do not care about their people or reputation, or, they are completely unaware of these incidents at the corporate level, or, they have made a budgetary decision to not spend the $10,000 or $15,000 per store it would take to prevent them and take their chances that injury claims and wrongful death lawsuits will cost less over the long haul.
I hope that some enterprising member of the press in London, Ontario gets a chance to ask a corporate officer or member of the Costco Board of Directors why they allow a known hazardous condition to persist at their stores. I hope that a store manager or someone in the risk management department has the courage to ask the question. I am sure that there are any number of attorneys who would jump at the chance to ask that question.
I for one would like to know the answer. And I am sure that Addison Hall's family would like to know as well.
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