Safety Risks to Look Out for with Your Parking Lot This Winter

Parking lot accidents increase by 30% during the holiday season and the risks do not stop there. From slips, trips, and falls to theft and vandalism, we explore the risks to be aware of this Winter and how to tackle them.

The Hidden Costs Behind a Poorly Maintained Parking Lot This Winter

Around 50,000 crashes occur in parking lots and garages every year, which result in more than 60,000 injuries and over 500 deaths. Where crashes and injuries take place in a parking lot, owners can face potential lawsuits and financial losses due to such incidents.

In the long term, where crashes and injuries have occurred often, businesses may face higher insurance premiums, creating further unexpected costs.

Personal safety risks also increase as slips, trips, and falls become more common due to the colder, icier weather. For parking lots, businesses hold a responsibility to manage the site and prevent accidents from taking place. 

Injuries faced can impact businesses due to the financial implications caused and lead to employees needing potential time off work if they become injured themselves.

This makes it imperative that those responsible for parking lots prepare correctly for the Winter to prevent any accidents and injuries from occurring, and facing the financial consequences of this.

The Safety Risks to Be Aware of and How to Prepare For Them This Winter

There are four key safety considerations that parking lots need to be aware of, especially during the Winter months, to prevent and protect those using the facilities and your business.

Read on to learn about the four main risks and the practical methods you can implement to tackle each one.

Increased Risk of Slip, Trips, and Falls in Winter Weather

According to SFM, 25% of ice and snow-related falls occur in parking lots, with 20% of slips and falls that occur in parking lots resulting in lost time from work. 

This can lead to increased financial implications for businesses due to medical costs, compensation claims, lost hours, and increased insurance premiums on the parking lot. 

You hold a duty of care to those using the parking lot facilities, and this includes reducing the risk of slips, trips, and falls especially during the colder periods. 

There are several tips to help prevent such incidents at your parking lot:

Provide a Strong Light Source 

Poor lighting can increase the chance of slips, trips, and falls as individuals may be unable to establish their footing correctly or understand the ground conditions.

By placing a strong light source on your parking lot and the walking routes within this, you will provide a clear view of any ice, snow, or debris that could be a slip, trip, or fall risk. 

Regularly Clean the Parking Lot

During Winter, parking lots can collect debris such as snow and ice. It is important that this debris and water is regularly cleaned away to reduce the chance of any slips taking place. 

On days when the weather is particularly harsh, check your parking lot more often to ensure build-ups do not occur. 

Add Markings to Your Parking Lot

Parking lots can be filled with lots of unexpected hazards like ramps, speed bumps, elevation changes, steps and tire stops.

Therefore, it is crucial that you mark these points to highlight the risk to anyone walking around the parking lot where they could trip or fall over. 

Implement a Surveillance Solution

Although all the above methods are effective at helping prevent slips, trips, and falls at your parking lot, they do not provide complete security as a business.

Implementing a surveillance solution such as LotGuard can help both manage and protect businesses from these safety risks.

LotGuard provides a complete security service that allows you to manage and mitigate risks remotely and provides evidence for any legal procedures where a slip, trip or falls has taken place in your parking lot. 

Find Out 10 More Tips For Better Parking Lot Safety Here

Theft and Vandalism of Property within Parking Lots

Winter often leads to an increase in theft and vandalism. As days grow shorter and darker nights set in, parking lots need to prepare for these risks. Car crime is costly, and parking lots are up to 40% more likely to be stolen from than any other location. 

Ensuring you have a robust, reliable surveillance system in place can help manage active incidents and support with video evidence where theft has occurred.

LotGuard provides exactly that, along with additional tools such as remote capabilities, complete autonomy and a fully managed service that makes parking lot security easy. With our LotGuard Pro Surveillance Trailers’ design working as an extra deterrent to any thieves.

With parking lots a target for crime, prevention is not enough and utilizing a surveillance solution can complete the protection part required of your parking lot this Winter. 

Rise in Parking Accidents During the Winter Season at Parking Lots

About 500 people are killed in parking lot accidents each year, and with Winter creating increased risks, parking lots require more management to prevent incidents like this from taking place. 

Although parking accidents may not seem a direct responsibility of yours, you do have a responsibility in preventing accidents within your parking lot where possible. 

Implementing effective tools such as adding speed bumps, hiring security staff, improving lighting, and adding clear signage can help in reducing such accidents. However, installing a surveillance system is the best option for complete protection.

LotGuard’s Surveillance Trailers provide accident and injury management by authorizing access for you to monitor live video of your parking lot whilst also letting you watch any incidents back to understand the root cause of them. This allows you to establish if any improvements can be made to prevent this from happening in future.

You can also utilize any of the footage as evidence in future if required. 

Assault and Criminal Activity over the Holiday Season

Over the Holiday season, parking lots become busier, especially in Retail. Some opportunistic criminals will take advantage of this, targeting individuals with lots of shopping bags or those walking through a dark location of a parking lot.

Due to the early darkness, those using your parking lot no longer have that sense of security that the light brings to them. Therefore, improving your security is the only way to combat this. 

LotGuard offer Surveillance Trailers that provide multiple benefits to prevent criminal activity:

• Provides the capability for remote, 24/7 monitoring
• Bold design to deter any criminal activity
• Provides a fully managed security service (whilst saving you money)
• Captures live video that can be utilized as evidence and support criminal prosecutions 

Find Out How We Support Park ‘N’ Fly

Don’t Wait Until Winter with Your Parking Lot Security

Part of ensuring you are protected over the Winter period is in the preparation. Don’t wait to take action once Winter has hit because you could be leaving it too late. It only takes one incident to impact you as a business, both financially and reputationally, and you don’t want that to be you.

LotGuard provides surveillance solutions that deliver complete parking lot security at up to 87% cheaper than security guards. This means you can save on spending this Winter without saving on your security service.

Learn more on our Ask LotGuard page, or get in contact with one of our experts who can support and guide you on this.