Storefront crashes can happen anywhere. They can happen any time. And they can happen for many reasons. But one thing remains consistent; almost all of these storefront crashes are preventable and foreseeable because so many of them fit into such a common pattern.
This weekend, Rite Aid employee Sharla Cummings was critically injured when a Lexus sedan driven by an 84 year-old customer failed to stop when parking, but instead accelerated through the ADA parking space, over a very low curb, and straight through windows to strike Ms. Cummings as she was working at the cashier's booth.
You can read the excellent news coverage and see the on-scene photography from the Portland Press Herald HERE
ADA spaces pointed right at store entrances create a much higher than normal risk of a vehicle-into-building crash. Pedal error / driver error crashes account for more than 40% of all storefront crashes; pointing the highest risk drivers at the most vulnerable part of the storefront can have tragic consequences, as it did in this case.
This accident was foreseeable because of the nose-in ADA parking aimed at the front entrance. This accident was preventable because one of two simple steps would have kept that Lexus from crashing through the entrance; either eliminate the nose-in parking and place those spaces elsewhere, or install a simple and inexpensive tested steel barrier or bollard between parking vehicles and the sidewalk. Sharla Cummings would have been uninjured but for the lack of simple planning, at a cost of less than a thousand dollars or so.
60 times per day. 500 killed per year. And Sharla Cummings is now one of the 4,000 or so people that will be injured in a storefront crash this year -- and it didn't have to be that way.
This weekend, Rite Aid employee Sharla Cummings was critically injured when a Lexus sedan driven by an 84 year-old customer failed to stop when parking, but instead accelerated through the ADA parking space, over a very low curb, and straight through windows to strike Ms. Cummings as she was working at the cashier's booth.
You can read the excellent news coverage and see the on-scene photography from the Portland Press Herald HERE
ADA spaces pointed right at store entrances create a much higher than normal risk of a vehicle-into-building crash. Pedal error / driver error crashes account for more than 40% of all storefront crashes; pointing the highest risk drivers at the most vulnerable part of the storefront can have tragic consequences, as it did in this case.
This accident was foreseeable because of the nose-in ADA parking aimed at the front entrance. This accident was preventable because one of two simple steps would have kept that Lexus from crashing through the entrance; either eliminate the nose-in parking and place those spaces elsewhere, or install a simple and inexpensive tested steel barrier or bollard between parking vehicles and the sidewalk. Sharla Cummings would have been uninjured but for the lack of simple planning, at a cost of less than a thousand dollars or so.
60 times per day. 500 killed per year. And Sharla Cummings is now one of the 4,000 or so people that will be injured in a storefront crash this year -- and it didn't have to be that way.
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