Garage doors were designed for both convenience and protection, allowing people to park their cars in an easily accessible, yet safe and secure location. Nevertheless, due to their sheer size and weight, garage doors can pose a significant safety hazard.
Consider this: in the average American house, the garage door is one of the heaviest moving parts, weighing in at anywhere from 300 to 600 pounds. This ponderous metal sheet is hoisted several times a day onto two metal rails up to a height of about 10 feet to allow entry, and lowered on those same rails to seal the entrance. All this movement is powered by a single device attached to the roof of the garage, operated by remote control. If any of these components were to fail or malfunction, several hundred pounds of metal would come crashing down on anything and anyone standing under it at the moment.
So what can you do to protect your family from being hurt in a garage door-related accident? To begin with, everyone should develop safe habits. Never walk or stand under a moving garage door. Don’t play with the garage door opener. Don’t tinker with, deform, or destroy any part of the garage door mechanism.
By federal law, garage door openers produced after 1993 are required to have a safety feature installed to automatically reverse the movement of the door if it hits any object while closing. While this feature is useful, do not rely solely on it. Furthermore, be sure to test the functionality of this safety device often to ensure that it is working properly.
If you or someone in your family has been injured by a faulty garage door, you may have a claim against the people or company responsible.