Car accidents can happen anywhere and produce serious injuries and property damage, even in places you might not expect. Many people don’t realize that one of the most common places for car accidents to occur is not on high-speed roadway, but in a boring old parking lot. Parking lots actually hold significant dangers that many drivers don’t recognize because the lots are so fundamentally different from roads.
Two serious risk factors in parking lots are the presence of pedestrians and distractions, generally in much higher quantities than in other driving spaces. Many drivers falsely believe that parking lots are not that dangerous as roads because we drive within them at much lower speeds than on roads. Unfortunately, this is only partially true. While lower speeds do help keep the accidents that do occur from causing far greater damage and injury, cars are still giant machines that weigh thousands of pounds and may easily cause damage at any speed.
When two vehicles collide in a parking lot, but there is no obvious injury, police may refuse to come to the scene of the accident altogether if it is on private property. This means that neither driver has an official police report to help clear up liability issues.
If you recently suffered injuries or property loss in an accident in a parking lot, you should definitely take the matter seriously. You may have grounds to pursue fair compensation for your injuries and losses, or the other driver may believe that you are actually responsible for the accident and refuse to accept liability. In these cases, it is often useful to enlist the help of an experienced attorney to keep your rights and well-being protected while you work to resolve the accident fairly.
Source: Findlaw, “6 ways to avoid a car accident,” accessed Dec. 15, 2017
