Barrier to Safety?

Barriers at the entrance and exits to car parks are a common sight, particularly in Pay on Foot car parks. But, especially when raised, they can present a tempting cut-through route to unwary pedestrians with the resulting risk of injury from the closing barrier and from moving vehicles.

One of our NHS clients had just this problem repeated on a few occasions on their public surface car parks. Despite existing signing on the barrier arms a number of incidents had occured that presented risks to car park users and also the risk of claims against the hospital, despite it’s best efforts to warn users.

They approached The Parking Shop to discuss how we could assist in communicating the message more clearly. The car park in question had pathways to the side of each barriered lane with concrete bollards to prevent vehicle ingress. As these were in line of sight to the pedestrian route, using these to communicate seemed a good start, as did enhancing the messaging on the barriers themselves.

The resulting package of measures saw us deploy our Pillar Protector solution on the concrete bollards with suitable warning words and symbols. A padded barrier arm cover was also introduced to both communicate the warning message and, in the worst case scenario, also provide a softer impact should a pedestrian still choose to walk beneath the arm. As a further measure, the Pillar Protector product was used to cover the intercom posts and a sign post alongside the entry lane.

All of the designs were completed in red and white hazard stripes with additional symbols and words. Now that they are spread across the width of the pedestrian and vehicle lanes they present a highly visible and consistent message to car park users. While they can’t prevent a reckless individual walking under the barriers, the solutions used make for more compelling messaging and help to mitigate the hospital’s risk in the event of an unfortunate incident.