Hey Wendy's -- Your customers are getting injured and killed in your restaurants.  Where is your national program to upgrade the safety of your storefronts?

Here is just the BASIC list of vehicle-into-restaurant crashes at Wendy's in 2015.  These do not include parking lot accidents, simple building scrapes, or drive thru lane mishaps;  these are crashes where the vehicle broke the envelope of the building and caused damages and/or injuries.  In at least one case, a customer was killed.

February 17th  Key Largo Florida  Injuries
February 19th  Bayonne New Jersey  Fatality
February 20th  Las Vegas Nevada 
April 17th  Terre Haute Indiana  Injuries
June 16th  Paramus New Jersey  Injuries
August 18th  Jacksonville Florida
September 3rd  Paramus New Jersey  Injuries  SECOND CRASH IN 11 WEEKS!
September 4th  Troy Ohio
November 3rd  Chantilly Virginia  Injuries

One common element is these eight different sites is that the storefronts are unprotected, and a review of all eight of the sites listed above shows that most have nose-in parking and a lack of safety barriers installed.  Seeing the number of crashes and injuries so far this year, you would think that Wendy's would understand the need to take corrective action in the design of parking lots, the layout of new stores, and require the addition of simple barriers in vulnerable areas.  You would think that -- but unfortunately you would be wrong.  Here are some photos of NEWLY REMODELED OR NEWLY BUILT RESTAURANTS which as you can see continue the vulnerabilities that death and injury and repetition have already exposed.

Wendy's YOU ARE ON NOTICE as a result of more than 100 accidents since 2012 -- persisting in poor design, poor layout, and the lack of safety barriers at your restaurants have resulted in deaths and injuries to your patrons and employees.  Wendy's risk managers -- at what point do the costs of doing the wrong thing finally result in your company doing the right thing?

Two tragedies.  Two families hurt by death.  Two stores that failed employees and customers by not taking simple precautions to prevent these tragedies.

On the right, Costco in London Ontario.  A car accelerates backwards at high speed, passes between bollards and crashes directly into the entrance area.  Two young children killed, severe injuries to their mom.

On the left, HEB in Houston Texas.  A car accelerates backwards at high speed, passes between decorative fixtures and crashes through the glass doors and into the checkout area.  A young mother is killed, numerous customers and employees injured.

Do not think that just because these cars came crashing into these stores backwards that this was any kind of a fluke, or a case of lightning striking twice.  Such crashes are not uncommon.  More that sixty times a day, a vehicle crashes into a store or office or restaurant.  Costco has had numerous injury accidents where vehicles plowed into people at entrances and food courts;  HEB is a very large grocery chain in Texas and the grocery industry has been on notice for some time that these accidents are frequent and that they seem to be increasing.

Whether the cars come crashing in backwards or forwards, the injuries are just as severe and the deaths are just as final.  Both stores had installed decorative or functional devices in front to keep cars from pulling up parallel to the store to load and unload on the sidewalk -- in both accidents, the speeding vehicle simply passed between them because they were too far apart or too ineffective to act as a safety barrier.

Grocery store Trader Joe's has begun a program to protect ALL of their storefronts in the United States.  Chains like WAWA and others in the convenience industry also protect their customers and employees.  These companies have understood the problem in a way that Costco and HEB have not;  effective barriers, installed and spaced correctly, save lives of customers and employees.  They also save money -- if you don't believe me, ask any attorney.

Codes will change, design criteria will change, and the public and employees will be better protected.  Until that happens, cars will keep crashing into storefronts and people will be injured and killed -- and it doesn't have to be that way.

I received a heads-up email from Shawn Cummings this morning simply saying "Another one in Maine." 

Sure enough, a van had driven head first into a Dunkin Donuts near Portland Maine.  That incident is depicted in the photo on the left, above.  Less than a month ago, a very similar incident occurred at a different Dunkin Donuts location in Hatfield Township Pennsylvania, which was hit for the second time in a month.  The photo of that more recent incident in Hatfield is the one on the right, above.

Pay attention to the similar store layout....mostly glass frontage, nose-in parking, nothing but a sidewalk between oncoming cars and people standing, sitting, or working inside those stores.  And these look like modern stores too -- why on earth does Dunkin Donuts continue to crank out locations that are so obviously unsafe?  All the injuries ( there were six more injured in the accident today in Maine) and all of the lawsuits (settled and pending) apparently have not been enough to get any corporate notice at Dunkin Brands, which owns both Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins.  All of the warnings, incidents, and negative attention is still apparently too little to get enough corporate attention to correct a very correctable problem.

So let me make this very clear:  Dunkin Donuts franchisees and Dunkin Brands -- you are on notice that storefront crashes are foreseeable, predictable, and preventable.  You are on notice that when you fail to place effective barriers in front of stores or require safety barrier installation as part of the franchise agreements you make, you are perpetuating at your locations a known hazardous condition that you have purposefully failed to address.  You have lives of customers, pedestrians, and employees at risk every day, despite much evidence that you need to take immediate, effective and affordable action.  Dunkin Brands, you are on notice.

Now back Shawn Cummings.  The reason he emailed me "another one in Maine" is that on March 1st this year, Shawn's 66 year-old mother Sharla Cummings was working at her job at a RiteAid in Maine when a car driven my an 84-year old driver accelerated through a nose-in ADA parking space, over the sidewalk and through the wall of the store, crushing Sharla against the cash desk where she was working.  Severely injured, Sharla has been unable to work and is still recovering from her injuries.  The photo from that accident is below.  Look familiar?
Nose-in parking spaces, cars approaching straight at the store, nothing but a sidewalk to protect employees from oncoming cars.

As many as sixty times per day, a vehicle crashes into a store, restaurant, office, or other commercial building.  This is a fact that Shawn and his mother know very well.  This is also a fact that Dunkin Brands and Dunkin Donuts franchisees know very well.  Thanks to people like Shawn, companies like Dunkin Brands and their franchisees cannot pretend that they did not notice --  because now, they are ON notice.