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Retailers:  Notice How Some Of Yours Peers Protect Their Customers And Their Employees.

8/4/2014

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I have been reading the articles in the Canadian press and the discussions about the spacing between the bollards in front of the Costco store in London Ontario.  I was taken by two things;  the notion that since bollards are not required by code or ordinance that no retailer would spend money to install them, and that somehow bollards were either so ugly or so ineffective that retailers would see business suffer for no useful purpose.  The comments section of one article was particularly illuminating as to the wide difference of opinion and lack of information about parking lot safety and design....see the article and the comments section HERE.

It occurred to me that many people are unaware that there is a growing use of bollards as safety devices, security devices, and architectural features at Big Box retailers and certain high-end specialty retailers.  For many, they do double duty -- they prevent accidental storefront crashes and they prevent Crash and Grab ram raids.  But for most of the larger chains (and Costco is certainly one of those, given $100 billion in sales and almost 500 US and international locations) the use of bollards and the elimination of nose-in parking near entryways has become more and more standard.  I believe that this trend refutes both of the notions discussed above;  that no retailer would install them unless required to do so, and that the public would not be able to enter or exit through some sort of intimidating barrier.

As they say, a few pictures are worth a whole lot of words;  retailers (some of the biggest in the world) are using bollards to protect customers, employees, and entrances every single day.  They do have to do more to update and retrofit older store designs, and they do need to consult with experts as to what products to use and how they should be installed (as ASTM is in the process of validating.)  But I think when you see these stores with bollards in front, stores owned by companies that are very profitable and continue to be successful, it has to be seen that safety is good business, and that safety does not mean lost sales and lost profits.

Suffice it to say --  In the case of the Costco crash in London Ontario, the same bollards already in place but properly installed the correct distance apart would have saved two lives, millions of dollars, and much pain and grief.
 

I bet there is no person in that town who wishes it was any other way.

Here is the slide show, put together from random photos from an online image search.  I make no copyright claims as these are instructional examples only.


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Another Preventable Crash At a Costco Store, Killing a Six Year-Old and Injuring Several Others.  Another Example of Goal Post Bollards.

7/28/2014

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Picture
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)

Picture
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.


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    I am an expert in perimeter security and retail and pedestrian safety.  I am also co-founder of the Storefront Safety Council

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