Article from The Parking Professional Magazine

March, 2006

Advancing Pedestrian Safety and Risk Mitigation

By RICHARD SCHINELLER This document is available in .PDF format The Parking industry is committed to safety. Not only are we extremely sensitive of our responsibility to our customers, employees and neighbors but we are constantly reminded that personal injury and the litigation that comes with it may be the single biggest financial exposure parking area owners and operators face. Of particular interest to owner/operators is mitigating the risks associated with moving access and exit security equipment - gate arms, sliding gates and rolling doors. We have all watched with trepidation the horror stories regarding debilitating or even fatal accidents that have occurred over the years due to parking access equipment, even systems that have been judiciously serviced and maintained and are operating with the normal loop and electric eye sensing safeguards. Adding insult to injury, multi-million dollar judgments and settlements have become the norm, raising levels of financial exposure for equipment manufacturers, dealers, installers, property owners and lot operators to unprecedented levels. Of course there are the run-of -the mill insurance claims and ever rising premiums for vehicular damage from gate arms and the breaking of gate arms themselves that plague every lot operator on almost a daily basis - but it is the truly horrid accidents that makes one's blood run cold. The 2002 award of over $10 million to the family of an Illinois Circuit Court Judge killed by a sliding security gate at the Le Parc condominium complex in Naples, Florida highlights the issues that face operators every day - the gate had a safety system installed and pressure release clutch, but both had been deactivated at the request of residents who found the closing gate beeping alarm "annoying" and wanted the gate to open and close faster. According to Le Parc attorney Lynne Denneler, "Settling the case was in everyone's best interest. It was hideously tragic." Unfortunately it was a tragedy that most likely could have been averted had the safety systems not been circumvented. Another case of unsafe gate operation was recently in the headline news when a van carrying Seattle Seahawks players was involved in an accident on route to a media event in the garage of the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center days before Super Bowl XL. The gate let through the first van in the procession and then closed on the second van immediately behind it without sensing the moving vehicle. Fortunately, the only damage was to the vehicle, but this kind of accident happens across the country in parking and other facilities every day. According to media reports, the parking gate sidelined the van carrying Seahawk's quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, running back Shaun Alexander, offensive tackle Walter Jones, guard Steve Hutchinson and defensive lineman Chuck Darby. Hasselbeck was knocked from his seat and damage to the van rendered it inoperable. The van carrying Alexander and the all-stars was struck from the side and below by automatic gates while trying to get through the entrance at the hotel complex. Reportedly Hasselbeck had just removed his seat belt when the gate struck. Alexander stated to the media that there was a loud bang that startled the players and especially shook the driver. ``It was crazy,'' Alexander said. ``We all got tossed around a bit inside. But we're all OK.'' According to Alexander he saw Pittsburgh Steeler running back Jerome Bettis coming out of the hotel and asked him "Do you have one of those automatic things to push the gates down?' He said, 'No, it wasn't me,''' Alexander said. NFL vice president of security Milt Ahlerich said the accident would be reviewed. ``The most important thing is that no one was injured,'' he said. "Imagine swinging a 10 or 12 foot-long bat at someone, and you get an idea of the potential destructive power of a parking gate arm," said Carl Parks, Chief Operating Officer of Invisa, Inc., which produces SmartGate, a non-contact gate safety solution that establishes a sensing field that moves with and precedes the moving gate arm or barrier. "To prevent accidents like this you have to sense for an obstruction in front of or below the moving barrier and signal the barrier to quickly stop and reverse." According to Tom Wadsworth, Editor of the Door and Access Systems Manufacturers Association (DASMA) newsmagazine, "In the last several years, the automated gate industry stepped up its ongoing efforts to create safer installing and operating procedures for automated gates. In 2000, Underwriters Laboratories (UL) passed new requirements in the gate operator section of UL standard 325 and in 2002, ASTM published F2200-02, the new standard for automated vehicular gates. DASMA and the gate operator industry actively participated in the development of both standards. Today's automated gates are clearly safer than they've ever been but manufacturers are constantly searching for innovative ways to improve safety." The real liabilities and risks are more likely to be associated with pedestrian traffic through gate areas. Technology to date has been more focused on preventing vehicular gate strikes, and the UL 325 requirements recognize that pedestrian traffic should at all times be restricted from active vehicle access gates. But as with so many things in life, pedestrian traffic is an uncontrollable variable in most parking areas. Signs that warn pedestrians of the potential for serious injury or death are required to be posted on and around parking gates; however, signs alone have proven to be ineffective in protecting pedestrians. Access control equipment designed to open and close parking gates for vehicles can lull pedestrians into a false sense of protection because the majority of access control systems do not recognize or protect pedestrians. Gate sensors and safety device development to date has been more focused on access control versus pedestrian or vehicle safety. Currently available technology, like light beams, ultrasonic detectors and contact edges, are not widely used because they are expensive and have reliability issues. In addition, they don't do their detecting in the area of highest danger - immediately under the moving gate arm. "Light beams get dirty, knocked out of alignment and don't work that well in inclement weather. Ultrasonic solutions are also negatively effected by weather and fairly expensive. These types of detectors are really designed to protect vehicles from damage, and as a result neither system addresses gate arm safety for all potential gate area traffic above and beyond automobiles - pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles and trailers," said Mr. Parks. Invisa developed SmartGate as an electronic non-contact safety system designed to provide an invisible field that moves with and precedes the gate arm. If the gate arm is coming down on any obstruction, the gate arm is signaled to stop and reverse to avoid or reduce injury and damage. SmartGate can be fitted to any current gate arm operator and a number of manufacturers, including Magnetic and Linear/OSCO, recognize non-contact safety as a prudent risk management tool and recommend their clients have SmartGate installed as an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) option on new gate operators at the factory. According to Stefan Tea, General Manager, Magnetic Automation, "Magnetic has consistently been proactive in the area of gate safety. We believe that integrating non-contact safety into our best gate product lines makes a powerful statement to our distribution chain while at the same time greatly enhancing our risk management strategy." Some of the busiest pedestrian traffic parking areas are at airports and as a result airport facility operators have by necessity pushed the envelope in exploring new methods for assuring pedestrian safety. Most national airports have large numbers of parking gates located near busy foot traffic paths that represent a significant potential risk to pedestrians, particularly when they may be preoccupied with travel plans and airline schedules and are encumbered with bags, carts, strollers and children that inhibit mobility and time constraints that encourage the propensity to take a short cut through the gate arm area. DGM Systems has integrated non-contact gate safety into parking gate installations at the Billings, Montana and Eugene, Oregon airports. According to Michael Hershberger, DGM Systems Project Manager, "On the safety front, if you can integrate non-contact gate safety devices into your existing gates and that helps eliminate just one potential injury, and that person from hiring an attorney to bang on your door, the time and expense more than pays for itself. We have found SmartGate is especially appropriate for large airport parking environments in order to protect the high numbers of pedestrians in these areas." Early adopters of non-contact gate safety systems include parking facility operators at Hartsfield, Denver, McCarren, Love Field, Philadelphia, Ronald Reagan and Orlando International airports. In addition to airport parking lots, high-risk environments for parking gates include employee, customer and municipal parking lots, gated subdivisions, condominiums and apartments, entertainment venues, hotels and pay-parking facilities. The use of electronic non-contact safety equipment is most critical when it is known or reasonably anticipated that children may be in the area, pedestrians may walk near or under the parking gate and when parking gates are not fully supervised. "Risk and exposure for operators and dealers is particularly high in environments with heavy pedestrian traffic, especially where there are children or bicyclists," according to Randy Baker of Linear/OSCO. "Integrating SmartGate at the point of manufacture into our barrier gate products raises the bar on safety standards in the parking gate environment." Injuries and fatalities have brought great attention to the industry and given the severity of these incidents it is highly unlikely that this scrutiny will subside. In 2001, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reported that since 1985 they have learned of 32 deaths related to automatic gates, including 20 deaths to children. Over the ten-year period from 1990 to 2000, the CPSC has estimated that nearly 25,000 people have been involved in automatic gate-related injuries, including 9,000 children under 15 years old. Each year over 2,000 people, including 800 children, are treated in hospital emergency rooms for injuries to the head, neck, arm, or hand. Accidents like these set in motion a sequence of litigation cascading from the end user to the original equipment manufacturer. A legal case that went all the way to the New York Supreme Court highlights the litigation risk pedestrian traffic poses to gate operators when before a football game at Syracuse University, Alan A. Kemak was hit on the head by a falling parking gate arm while walking with a crowd of people on the way into the stadium. While testimony in the case showed that scores of people before him had walked under the gate, when Mr. Kemak was under it the arm fell, hitting the back of his head. Because of his injuries, he was taken to a local hospital. This case is a glaring example of why operators must ensure safety for pedestrians - Kemak claimed the gate was under the exclusive control of the university and asked the Supreme Court of New York, Seneca County, for summary judgment. The court agreed, and an undisclosed summary judgment was awarded. Parking area operators can consider litigation a certainty if there is a gate incident onsite. As we are all too well aware, there are scores of law firms that highlight their ability to maximize the cash benefit for those accidentally injured by a parking gate. A simple web search uncovers several firms that tout their ability to maximize parking gate injury settlements, one highlighting how they were able obtain a settlement before trial of $4.75 million for a 39-year-old woman struck on the head by arm of parking gate who suffered a minor head injury, or another firm that energetically publicized its ability to increase a pretrial settlement for a man injured when a gate descended on his motorcycle from $200,000 to over $1.8 million. Richard Sedivy, DASMA president and director of marketing for Door King, stated, "To begin to defray potential liability, parking facility owners and operators have to make sure they understand and comply with the gate installation and operation instructions and listen closely to the recommendations of their installer as to what additional devices may be needed to assure safety in their particular installation. There are obviously many devices on the market today designed to enhance the safety of gate access environments - be it for vehicular or pedestrian traffic - and operators need to carefully evaluate what devices will provide the highest level of site safety and then implement them in order to maximize safety, minimize liability and assure regulatory compliance." Of course, the increasing risk of a business-incapacitating liability occurring brings with it an ever-increasing cost of insuring against that liability. Many dealers and installers are finding that their liability insurance rates have doubled or tripled over the past five years as their liability exposure has increased. To minimize your liability, reduce the risk of local inspector rejections and ensure compliance with all OSHA federal laws, your parking access system should ascribe to NRTL system certification to UL 325 Fourth Edition. To ensure the highest level of protection, system components should be tested, certified, listed and labeled by the original equipment manufacturer before they leave the production facility. Anything less unnecessarily jeopardizes both your business and the individuals who use your facility. Incorporating non-contact gate safety systems such as SmartGate helps to minimize the potential for a catastrophic incident and also evidences the operators concern and commitment to establishing the highest safety standards in their facility - an important legal measure of liability. "Gate manufacturers, dealers and installers want the end user to make informed safety decisions. In our experience when facility operators are made aware of the risks of parking gates, particularity risks to pedestrians, children and bicyclists, they generally select the appropriate level of safety for their particular gate site," said Mr. Parks. "The current litigious atmosphere has brought a heightened awareness of the value of a proactive commitment to safety from manufacturer to end-user, and we see interest in SmartGate as confirmation that the industry as a whole is concerned with, and committed to, constant improvement in safe gate operation." Mr. Hershberger concluded with, "We have found non-contact gate safety to be a sound risk mitigation and management tool to reduce potential liability for parking area operators. In addition, the technology not only virtually eliminates gate strikes but also reduces incidents of broken gate arms. This alone can save an operator hundreds of dollars replacing gate arms every month." Operators are all too well aware of the risk environment they operate in. Next month we will provide a detailed technical analysis of available non-contact gate safety systems, their effectiveness, cost and ease of implementation. Author: Richard Schineller Mr. Schineller is a Sarasota-based writer covering communications, information, security and entertainment technologies. He can be reached via email at rich@prmgt.com.