25 Investigates: Why don’t more storefronts have protective barriers?

In the wake of a deadly crash at an Apple Store in Hingham, some have asked why there weren’t protective barriers separating the store from the parking lot.

State Lawmakers have been talking about the subject for a few years now.

The Storefront Safety Council told Boston 25 that crashes like this happen around 100 times a day around the country and that there have been more than 800 in Massachusetts alone in the past decade.

A 2019 bill filed on Beacon Hill aimed to tackle storefront safety.

The goal was to install retaining walls or pillars known as bollards in front of more commercial buildings.

Back then, the owner of Kappys Liquors in Malden told us he had them installed overnight - for about $30,000.

The co-founder of the Storefront Safety Council told Boston 25 it’s a simple fix.

They’re just called pipe bollards for a reason. Sometimes they have decorative covers on them and sometimes they’re made from concrete. But by and large, it’s steel pipes. And so, you know, 260 million people a week walk into a Wal-Mart and every single one of them walks between bollards because Wal-Mart says, I don’t want any cars driving into my store,” said Rob Reiter. “The number of accidents divided by the number of doors for them is way smaller than it is for unprotected places.”

Reiter says many stores don’t want to deal with the cost or they don’t like the way they look.

He also said Apple stores in particular have seen crashes in the past- sometimes because thieves are looking to steal the pricey equipment inside.

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