Smart Safety: Parking Lot Safety

It's never a bad idea to review parking lot safety - especially this time of year, as many families are going to shift into a new routine that may involve school parking lot drop-offs or visits to games, concerts, and sporting events. With that in mind, I'd like to share this information from Dr. Schwebel on parking lot safety.

In the United States, an estimated 5,000 injuries and 205 fatalities of children age 14 years and younger occur from collisions with vehicles in non-traffic locations, like parking lots, driveways and private property, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2007 report.

A new study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham shows an alarming need for adult supervision in parking lots, with 67 percent of children observed not having supervision at some point between the vehicle’s parking and the child’s entering the building.

“Children are unpredictable,” said David Schwebel, Ph.D., associate dean for research in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences. “The safety risks in parking lots are already dangerous. We observed that parents pay less attention to their children in these parking lots, even further elevating the risk.”

Investigators believe that the perception of risk diminishes in well-known, familiar locations, because adults and children feel “safe.” Jenni Rouse, a doctoral student in the UAB Department of Psychology, explains that adults and children may not see risks in parking lots because vehicles are moving more slowly, injury rates are perceived as lower in this environment, there is an eagerness to get to where they are going. However, various distractions like cellphones are present, and there is a transfer of responsibility for creating a safe environment from the pedestrian to the driver.

Rouse recommends adult supervisors implement injury prevention strategies, including:

• Holding a child’s hand in parking lots
• Making sure children remain in the car until an adult opens the door
• Exiting the car from the passenger side when being dropped off near a building to avoid cars passing on the driver side
• Teaching basic pedestrian safety practices, like looking both ways for traffic before crossing the parking lot
• Making children aware of traffic and the dangers associated with moving vehicles
• Using sidewalks when available
• Reducing distractions as children are guided through a parking lot, including cellphones and conversations with others

Teach safety practices early
Caretakers should begin teaching their children basic safety practices at a young age. These practices include:

• Checking for moving vehicles by looking both ways before crossing the street
• Watching for vehicles that are backing up
• Walking in parking lots and avoiding horseplay

You can learn more, including what drivers and parking lot designers can do, in the full news release here.