Parking garages may seem harmless enough since vehicles travel more slowly through them. Despite this, however, parking garages are notoriously dangerous and become the locations of many accidents and crimes. Each year, tens of thousands of vehicle accidents occur in parking garages, which result in thousands of injuries and hundreds of fatalities. To better understand the cause of such incidents, take a look at this list of the top dangers of parking garages.
Congestion
One of the main dangers in parking garages is traffic congestion. Even at slow speeds, having many different vehicles driving around in the same confined space poses a large accident risk. As such, it’s important to take measures to smooth traffic flow in parking garages as much as possible.
One of the most effective ways to do so is to implement parking guidance technology. Such systems provide drivers with real-time information on the availability of parking spots in a parking garage and direct them to open spaces. In doing so, they help prevent drivers from aimlessly moving around and allow them to get in and out of the garage more quickly.
Aggressive Driving
Parking garages often create a highly aggressive driving environment since many different drivers are all looking for a limited amount of open spots. After several minutes of searching, drivers may become more aggressive in their hunt and try pulling in front of other cars to snag a spot. As tensions rise, the potential for collisions increases.
Distracted Driving
In many cases, people start to let their guards down while driving in parking garages. Since driving speeds are much lower than on the road, they feel safer. As a result, they often become more likely to engage in distracted driving practices, such as checking their phones or fiddling with their navigation systems. Such a false sense of security often results in many avoidable parking garage accidents.
High Pedestrian Count
Another one of the top dangers of parking garages is the high amount of pedestrians present. Since drivers mainly focus on finding an open parking space, they may not notice a pedestrian crossing their path. Such instances often lead to devastating accidents. So, both pedestrians and drivers need to maintain vigilance while inside a parking garage.
