Crashes, Crime, and Confusion: Who’s Responsible in Parking Lots?

Q: Who is responsible for traffic enforcement, and crime generally, in grocery store parking lots? I was recently involved in an incident and nowhere was any traffic enforcer visible. The store’s management made it clear it wasn’t their responsibility. Unlike large malls, they had no security.

A: I’m a traffic safety nerd, not a crime nerd, so I’ll cover what the law says about traffic enforcement on private property, and I’ll pretend to know what I’m talking about regarding crime. I’m stating that up front so you know how much confidence to have in my response.

The reason you don’t see any traffic enforcers in parking lots is because, for the most part, traffic laws don’t apply on private property. The very first sentence in Washington’s Rules of the Road states that the rules in that chapter apply “exclusively to the operation of vehicles on highways…” followed by a few exceptions that “apply on highways and elsewhere throughout the state.”

As you might imagine, this list includes the most serious offenses: vehicular homicide and assault, impaired driving, reckless driving, negligent driving, and a few other related violations. Also, if you get in a crash, you have the same responsibility to report the crash whether you’re on a public road or on private property.

Police could patrol parking lots looking for high-risk traffic violations, but that’s not where most of them occur, so they generally choose to put their limited resources elsewhere. That’s not to say it never happens. Several cities in Washington have at times focused on traffic enforcement in parking lots, but it’s been to address a specific problem – illegal racing.

Even if a store has security staff, they probably won’t be enforcing any traffic (or criminal) laws. Most private security officers do not have that authority. That’s not always the case though. Sometimes companies hire off-duty police officers to work security. Those officers maintain their police powers while working for a private company.

I don’t know the specifics of your incident, so I’ll generalize about who might be responsible for responding to or taking action regarding a traffic incident in a parking lot. If the incident rose to the level of one of the traffic crimes I mentioned earlier, your best choice of action is calling the police. They would investigate the crime and enforce the law as appropriate. The same goes for a non-traffic crime committed in a parking lot.

If the incident was a crash that caused more than 1000 dollars damage to either vehicle or anyone was injured, the law requires drivers involved in the crash to report it. You could do that by calling the police, or by submitting a collision report yourself.

If it was a minor fender-bender with no injuries and minimal damage, there is no requirement to make a collision report (although you still could if you wanted to). Even if you don’t need to report the collision, the law requires the drivers involved to exchange information. It would be up to your insurance company to sort out who was responsible for the crash.

If the incident wasn’t a crime, and didn’t result in a crash, maybe there wasn’t a violation of any law. Say another driver saw you about to pull into a parking spot, and accelerated into it before you could pull in. I don’t know of a law that requires yielding to someone about to park. And it’s not illegal to be a jerk (until that jerkiness meets some established legal standard). Then the right move is to be the mature one in the situation and respond accordingly.