Slip and Fall: Preventing Liability with Building Security

Slips, trips, and falls are inevitable. They can happen indoors, outdoors, at home, and on the street, but when they happen at your facility, they come with an added concern: liability. Who’s responsible for an injury caused by a slip and fall on your property? It’s not uncommon for the blame to fall on the property owner, especially if the fall was a result of negligence. With that in mind, it’s important to do everything in your power to minimize safety risks at your site. 

What causes a slip and fall?

Most slip and fall accidents occur due to a loss of traction between someone’s shoe and the surface on which he or she is walking. The first step you can take to prevent this is to improve the safety of walking surfaces. Things to watch out for include:

• Wet floors
• Greasy floors
• Floors covered in dust or power
• Polished or freshly waxed floors
• Loose flooring, carpeting or mats
• Uneven floor structures or surfaces
• Irregular stairs, or stairs with no hand rails
• Areas with stray electrical cords or cables
• Surfaces affected by rain, ice or snow

Prevention and maintenance

If any of the above hazards are present at your facility, it’s critical to take action right away. If the problem is an easy fix, such as a spill, make sure someone is available to handle it immediately. If the problem requires a bit of extra work, such as loose tiles, determine what kind of repairs will be necessary and see these repairs through to completion. And don’t just forget about an issue once it’s resolved—good housekeeping is key to ensuring safety long after repairs are completed.

As far as property maintenance, a cleaning routine that runs like clockwork will maintain your floors and prevent build up of scuff, grease and oil, water spills, and/or other hazards. Facility Managers should keep a schedule to confirm that all areas are checked and cleaned daily by someone on-site. This might include lobbies, hallways, restrooms, and even low traffic areas with limited access.

How building security can help

Unfortunately, staying on top of facility maintenance to prevent dangerous conditions won’t protect you from fake injury claims. To take slip and fall precautions one step further, you can invest in better building security. When a slip and fall accident occurs, it’s the injured person’s word against yours. Video footage, however, can confirm or deny that a fall occurred, verify the severity of the injury, and help determine who is at fault. This is why your facility should have CCTV video surveillance installed strategically throughout your site. After you install a surveillance system, you should consider extending the period for retaining surveillance footage. Oftentimes, slip and fall claims are made months after the incident, meaning you’ll need access to old data. Extended storage can help you there.

In addition, if you have areas that are off-limits due to safety hazards, you’ll want to invest in a way to properly secure them. A remote monitoring service uses intelligent analytics and virtual guards to detect and assess unwanted activity. This means that if someone were to wander into a restricted area on your property, a remote monitoring service would pick up on it and alert security personnel. This can prevent slip and fall accidents before they occur.

Need to upgrade building security in New York?

Peace of Mind Technologies can help you mitigate the risks of slip and fall accidents and protect yourself from liability. We have delivered site-specific, cost-effective security solutions to facilities throughout the greater New York Metro area since 2002. We aren’t your average security company; we have a wide range of equipment and services to suit your needs and consider ourselves partners, not just providers. New York facilities can contact us at (212) 688-2767 or info@pom-tec.com to request a free security analysis, or reach out via the contact form below.