WESTWOOD, Mass. — At University Place, bollards -- or barriers -- come in several shapes and sizes. Tubular columns protect Nordstrom Rack. At Target, it’s those familiar red concrete balls.
However, numerous retailers in the complex have no barrier between the front door and the parking lot. And that makes them much more vulnerable to speeding vehicles jumping the curb and crashing through the glass.
At the moment, the state doesn’t require retailers to install such barriers -- though some legislators have tried -- including then-Rep. Carolyn Dykema sponsored a bill in 2021 tying bollard installation with pedestrian safety. It was sent to the House Rules Committee in 2022 for further study. The legislative database indicates no further action six months later.
One objection to a bollard installation mandate: cost. But that’s an argument lost on Rob Reiter, co-founder of the Storefront Safety Council -- especially after the carnage in New Orleans early New Year’s Day.
“The most expensive barrier in the world is the one that you don’t buy,” Reiter said. “You have 15 people who are dead. Thirty-something injured. And if you don’t have a barrier that’s where your costs come from.
Reiter said he’s baffled the city of New Orleans didn’t do a better job of protecting the Bourbon Street crowd which, according to one witness, stood shoulder-to-shoulder.
“It just struck me that a city that knows better clearly did not do a great job in this instance,” he said. “It’s New Year’s Eve. People are in town for a big football game. It’s not like this sort of snuck up on people. So if they weren’t well-prepared it’s a function of their dysfunction.”
The city of New Orleans did park police cruisers at major intersections in and around the French Quarter. But Reiter said that clearly, it was not enough -- and that should have been obvious.
“It is not standard practice to try and use police cars to block a roadway,” he said. “It is ineffective. It is inefficient. They parked the police car in the middle of the street sideways. But the sidewalk on either side was uncovered and the space open was wider than the pickup truck so he just drove around the car.”
The suspect, Shamsud Din-Jabbar was shot and killed by police after exiting his vehicle with a firearm.
“If you look at the surveillance video, he makes a hard, right turn,” said Reiter. “He slows down to virtually zero miles per hour to make the turn. It would be easy to stop the truck right there.”
Reiter said storefront crashes, which are more common than crashes into crowds, happen about a hundred times a day and the vast majority of the time are the result of driver errors, such as pressing the gas pedal instead of the brake, or unintentionally putting the car into the wrong gear. Impaired drivers (DUIs) make up the second leading cause of storefront crashes, followed by drivers who suffer acute medical issues such as a heart attack or stroke.
“Of the remaining ones that are deliberate they tend to be more angry people,” he said. “Someone who was fired from a job, mad at the world. The number of purposeful terrorist incidents is probably less than five percent.”
Reiter, who actually testified in favor of the Massachusetts bollards bill, said it’s important when in a crowd not to make assumptions about safety.
“If you’re at an event like that and the city says that they’ve closed the streets for this event, the assumption is you can assume personal safety,” he said. “That is, somebody who knows what they’re doing did what they’re supposed to do because it’s a city event or whatever. And that’s just not true.”
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