Over a 15-year period, 6,253 cars crashed into 7-Eleven storefronts in the U.S. – an average of 1.14 per day.

7-Eleven apparently fought in court to withhold that data from the public.

“They have not been producing that information for many, many years,” Rogers said, “and that’s what’s important about this case - getting this information out about how frequently this happens.”

Rob Reiter is co-founder of the Storefront Safety Council. He was retained as an expert by Carl’s attorneys in this case.

“If you install bollards, you pretty much solve that problem,” he said of the danger.

Reiter advocates for safety bollards or protective barriers being placed in front of storefronts – especially those with parking lots that face the front door.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Seems like one of those facts that uses the law of large numbers to fake a point.

    Like how if you have 50 people in a room, there’s a 97% chance that two people share a birthday, therefore certain birthdays are more likely.

    6,253 sounds like a lot, but there are a lot of storefronts, too. How many of them happened at the same store? How many were a result of drunk driving vs driver error vs some other confounding factor? Ar 7-11 stores more likely than other storefronts to be the scene of a crash?

    Bollards are cheap, so by all means put them in the requirements. Or point the parking away from the storefront.

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      I’d say there are likely some sneaky factors in play as well, though - drunk drivers are probably most likely to be driving to a home or to a 7/11 to get more booze/snacks.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        We also used to get high outside the 711 in my neighborhood. But the storefront wasn’t facing the parking lot, and I wasn’t driving. We hung out there because it was within walking distance and it was open late.

    • br3d@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      If people are driving with appropriate skill and care, the number driving into large, well-lit buildings should be approximately zero per year. It sounds like you’re willing to excuse a lot of bad driving

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        If people are driving with appropriate skill and care,

        Then there would be a lot of road laws and protection devices that become obsolete.

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Bollards are cheap, so by all means put them in the requirements.

      Ya. If people are getting hurt way too often and a reasonable investment would prevent a commensurate number of injuries, maybe it’s OK to use raw numbers to shock the company/legislators and action.

      I would def give you that “X preventable injuries could be avoided for [$Y]/[$Z per injury]”, and some context on how much could be done if that money were spent another ways, would be good.