- Vehicles crash into buildings with surprising frequency in the US: more than 100 times each day.
- Nearly half of those cause an injury, while one in 10 is a deliberate attack by thieves to steal cash or goods.
On what began as a typical Wednesday in 2017, a Chicago man going by "Carl" stopped at his local 7-Eleven to grab his usual cup of coffee and wait for his carpool ride to work.
While he was waiting outside, another driver pulled into a parking space, but mistakenly stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake, popping the car onto the sidewalk and pinning Carl's legs against the wall, Carl's lawyers said. They also said Carl requested not to be identified.
Carl lost both of his legs as a result of his injuries, and was last week awarded a $91 million settlement against 7-Eleven — the largest pre-trial personal injury settlement in Illinois history, the local NBC affiliate reported.
As part of the discovery process, Carl's lawyers obtained crash incident data from all 7-Eleven locations in the US spanning the 15 years from 2003 to 2017. In all, there were 6,253 storefront crashes at 7-Elevens in that period — an average of more than one per day. One reason for the frequency is the sheer number of locations. 7-Eleven has more than 13,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada.
The once-a-day crash at 7-Eleven is in fact dwarfed by the total number of crashes that take place at storefronts across the US, however.
According to the Storefront Safety Council, more than 100 vehicles collide with buildings each day, with more than half of those occurring at retail shops, restaurants, or convenience stores. Each year, the council estimates as many as 16,000 people are injured and as many as 2,600 people are killed.
More than 40% of the crashes are caused by a 'pedal error' or other operator error, according to the council, but in one out of 10 cases, the crash is considered intentional, as thieves use a vehicle to smash into a building in order to steal merchandise, cash, or entire ATMs."Sometimes, they crash into a store and cause thousands of dollars in damage for a banana. No really — a banana," the researchers write.
The best protection for people and property alike comes in the shape of a big metal cylinder – or, in the case of Target, a giant red sphere – in front of the store.
"If you install bollards, you pretty much solve that problem," Storefront Safety Council co-founder Rob Reiter told CBS Chicago.
"This accident doesn't happen if somebody had spent about $800," he added.