A man drove into the Pueblo Mall food court. Here's how it could've been prevented
Editor's note: this story has been updated to correct the estimated amount of installing bollards at the Pueblo Mall.
A man drove his car through one of the busiest entrances at the Pueblo Mall earlier this week. Fortunately, no bystanders were physically harmed from the incident.
What happened at the mall isn’t unique. According to the Storefront Safety Council, cars drive into buildings over 100 times per day in the United States.
Some stores install physical barriers that can protect pedestrians — and buildings — from vehicles, but many of the entrances at the Pueblo Mall are not protected.
The Chieftain spoke with safety experts to contextualize what happened at the Pueblo Mall and how it could have been prevented.
What are bollards and what do they do?
Bollards are “vertical posts” anchored into the ground to put a barrier between vehicles and people, or property. That’s according to Rob Reiter, a consultant based in Colorado Springs with decades of experience in pedestrian safety.
“They’re very common,” Reiter said: for example, most Walmart stores have them installed at the entrances.
Bollards need to be properly installed to make sure they adequately protect vehicle incursions, said Sean Ahrens, a security consultant from Chicago. Ahrens added that they also need to be placed in context of the surrounding environment.
Why bollards could have prevented what happened earlier this week
Reiter said that bollards have become more common in protecting pedestrian areas and retail areas in recent years.
“I would say it's unusual for a mall owner not to have taken precautions to prevent this exact thing,” Reiter said about the recent crash into the Pueblo Mall.
The marketing manager at the Pueblo Mall did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Streets aren’t safe with simply a sign that says that it’s closed off to vehicle traffic — Reiter said that a man killed 10 people at a farmers market in Santa Monica in 2003 because bollards weren’t around to physically stop vehicles. That same logic applies to malls, he said.
“A mall is not safe from vehicles driving in unless there's a barrier to keep vehicles from driving in,” Reiter said.
Ahrens said that more stores have been installing bollards recently to mitigate “ram and raid” robberies and protect merchandise. However, human life is even more important than assets that can be replaced.
“Ultimately, we should be looking at proper bollards to prevent vehicle incursion where there's areas where it could be expected or there could be potentially high speed,” Ahrens said.
A few individual stores at the mall have bollards
A few of the individual stores that have direct street entrances at the Pueblo Mall have installed bollards in front of the doors.
Dillard’s, for example, has bollards in front of the open doors at the Pueblo Mall. Those appear to have been there since at least 2007, according to Google street view archives.
A media representative did not respond to a request for comment prior to the Chieftain’s deadline.
Boot Barn also has bollards in front of the Pueblo Mall store. A media representative also did not respond to a request for comment.
Street view archives also show a single bollard in front of the east-facing Pueblo Mall general entrance that was there when footage was last captured in 2018 but does not appear to be there today.
What would it take for the mall to install them?
Reiter estimated that it would cost approximately $700 to $900 per bollard for the Pueblo Mall to install, "depending on how pretty they wanted them to be."
The Pueblo Mall has 2.6 million annual visits, according to a pitch deck from Centennial, the company that owns the mall. People stay for an average of 65 minutes.
Anna Lynn Winfrey is a reporter at the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com. Please support local news at subscribe.chieftain.com.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Bollards could have prevented SUV crash into Pueblo Mall: Experts
