New UL 325 Standards Aim to Make Security Gate Systems Safer

A key national safety engineering advocacy group has announced updated design standards to decrease dangers of automatic gates to apartment complexes, upscale communities, subdivisions and business lots. They couldn’t come at a better time. Security gates are ubiquitous as living behind walls becomes ever more popular.

Underwriters Laboratories, which tests, audits and verifies commercial, industrial and consumer products, created the standards. Recommended changes include sensors that stop a gate when it hits a rigid object and a mechanism for the gate to reverse course.

The security gates come with the unintentional consequence of injury, death and/or property damage. Perhaps because the gates are not regulated by any government agency, data on deaths, injuries and defects are scarce. But it stands to reason that the explosion in the number of secured communities means more gates, hence more injuries.

Meant simply to restrict who comes and goes to a neighborhood, the gates lure children who see them as another piece of park equipment. The gates are easy to climb, have slatted openings good for wriggling through and move, making for a good ride. What’s more fun than a game of beat the gate before it closes?

A little boy in Las Vegas last year crawled through a horizontal slat where the electrical arm moves to open and close the gate. Another child on a bike activated the gate and the other child’s head got stuck and he was crushed.

It’s not just kids that get hurt. The Detroit Free Press last year ran a gruesome account of a gate-related death. A woman suffocated from compression after manually turning on the security gate to her business parking lot. She reached through a chain link fence to turn on the electrical box with her key. An employee found her dead the next day, pinned between the gate and electrical box.

The UL regulations, which are meant to provide the security gate industry standardized guides for equipment, design and safety, have no force of law as there is no government body regulating the gates. Industry safety advocacy groups such as The American National Standards Institute encourage companies to use standards such as UL’s.

Gate safety is not big news unless someone is killed or severely injured. Automatic gates are manufactured and sold with minimal oversight by industry groups largely obscure to the general public, unlike cars, some textiles and appliances.

The last official report easily available is 16 years old. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in 2000 estimated that 25,000 people were injured by gates in a 10-year period. Of those injured, 9000 were children under the age of 15.

In 2001, the agency reported that in 16 years there were 32 gate-related deaths, of which 20 were children. The 2001 report also stated 2,000 people, including 800 children, sought hospital treatment for injuries.

Prominent signage is among safety measures already in place. However, warnings, no matter how large and brightly colored, are largely ignored, engineering consultants say. And young children cannot read the signs.

One consultant group says the UL regulations are the “primary guideline” for manufacturers. Another group, The American National Standards Institute, which officially adopted UL’s recommendations, is considered the top authority in the quality design and operation products and accessories largely used in the industrial and commercial sector, such as factories, construction and trade work.

Consultants are pessimistic on gate manufacturers implementing the new guidelines wholesale. They say implementing safety features are expensive and difficult. And many installers don’t want to go through the trouble either, they say.

For information on the new guidelines, see http://www.ul325.com/. For even more detail, the Door & Access Systems Manufacturers Association offers a thorough safety brochure.

Harris Lowry Manton has handled dozens of catastrophic injury and defective product cases at trial or through settlements. If you or a loved one need legal consultation, HLM can help. Call us toll-free at 404-961-7650 or fill out our online contact form.