Personal injury claims involving parking lots have a unique set of challenges. Most notably, liability is often disputed. Driver’s often back up out of spots, which makes it difficult for them to see other vehicles. Other challenges, such as pedestrians, obstacles, reduced visability, and tight spaces, are present. The driver of one vehicle will often see the other vehicle and stop only to be struck by that second driver. The challenge then becomes establishing who was stopped and who was backing up just prior to impact.
Generally, the best thing to do if you are involved in a car accident in a parking lot is to gather as much evidence as possible. The best kind of evidence is a video camera. Often surrounding businesses will have cameras pointed into their parking lots. However, most businesses will not save their video recordings unless there has been an incident reported immediately. You should, therefore, make immediate efforts to canvas surrounding businesses looking for camera and other evidence.
Another source of solid evidence is a third party witness. The courts generally cannot take the side of one party over another, unless there is evidence to sway their opinion towards one side or the other. Third parties, who have no affiliation to either of the parties actually involved in an accident, can be great sources of such evidence.
Other sources of evidence such as forensics and engineers can be expensive and not always persuasive. An expert can be used to establish the mechanism of an accident. However, forensics and engineers reports typically cost around $10,000 and often cannot definitely prove fault.
According to ICBC, parking lot accidents peak around the holidays:
https://www.richmond-news.com/news/mall-parking-lot-car-crashes-peak-during-holidays-icbc-1.23504126
The parking lots are packed and people are rushing to get their holiday shopping done. Given the challenges of establishing fault in a parking lot accident, it’s best to drive overly cautiously in a parking lot and do your best to avoid motor vehicle collisions all together. That being said, you can only do so much to prevent injury from the negligence of others.
