Walmart Only Institutes Anti-Trampling Measures At NY Stores
Interesting note about that Walmart settlement, the anti-trampling measures are only going to be instituted at the 92 New York area stores. Now, sure, it was part of a deal with New York state but you'd think maybe they'd want to improve trampling conditions at the rest of their stores too. Who knows, maybe they're planning to get around to it. [AP]
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NY'ers are special, Special Ed. that is.
Why would they do that? People only trample others in New York, so there is no need, right? RIGHT?
New Yorkers are notably pushy and aggressive.
What are anti-trampling measures? Do they build fortifications and obstacles to limit how many people can move through a space at a time? Is there a way to avoid just pushing the bottlenecks further out the door?
I still fail to see how this incident was Wal-Mart's fault. Why haven't they prosecuted the morons who were ripping the door off the hinges? Or charged the people who trampled the poor guy with something related to rioting? Maybe I'm wrong but...
@Platypi: If more than one person goes through the door at the same time, everyone gets pelted with marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers.
And then they get tazed.
@Laura Northrup: I'd say that for the relative size of the city, Montreal is worse. You're more likely to get shoved there than you are in NY, and the Metro is not nearly as extensive or crowded as the NY Subway system.
If NY allowed stunning weapons, they'd simply be equipped with cattle prods to keep the crowds in check. It doesn't matter how bloodthirsty the thrift-happy mob is, everyone responds to the shrill crackle of a prod firing up.
I guess Wal-Mart wants to wait until they've negligent-homicided a low-paid temp worker in each and every other state - and the resulting wrongful death lawsuits - until the $10,000 value their bean-counters place per human life makes the little cell in the Excel spreadsheet turn red.
Well, it's not like Travis Bickle lives in Jersey, ferchissakes.
For those who haven't figured it out, us New Yorker's are probably the most impatient people in America. We don't have time to wait for anything (thus the term "New York Minute") and unfortunately, some of us don't care who they hurt in the process. Also, we can be the angriest people on the face of the earth...
The trampling situation at that Wal-Mart was a tragic combination of 1. close location to a relatively poor neighborhood. 2. The irresistible lure of black-Friday sales and 3. A lack of proper crowd control planning.
@Platypi: Basically, yes.
There are several things that responsible companies do to avoid these situations. Otherwise, trampling deaths would happen on a daily basis at Disneyworld and every time the Jonas Brothers played in concert (wait - is that a bad thing?).
Don't let queues form too long, manage traffic flow, no constricted opening, staggered entrance times, multiple entrances, etc. Common sense paired with Queuing Theory formulas to optimize flows vs waits.
Darned thing is, companies that do this don't make the local news on Black Friday about huge turnouts, and who'd in their right mind trade a couple mangled, crushed bodies when there's free PR to be had?
The whole $1.5M payment to county social programs that was forced on Wal-Mart is little short of extortion.
@JadoJodo: WalMart instigates these kinds of events by encouraging a "rush" on their stores in early morning hours. If they want that to happen (and it's really clear they do), they'd better be able to deal with the crowds.
@JadoJodo: Of course it's Walmart's fault - who else is to blame? Walmart has an obviously unsafe entrance way, doors that were able to be "ripped off the hinges", and no security that day.
I don't understand who else could be at fault other than Walmart.
@Trai_Dep: You're making this way too complicated. From what I've seen, the only anti-trampling measures they need to take is adding a few stairs outside the front door.
@Platypi: I keep picturing a Portcullis dropping over their main enterance as a moat fills in around their store now.
@Trai_Dep: That sounds like a great idea to implement in stores, if they get mob sized crowds outside their stores every day. While it would be great for them to bring in specific crowd control items when they know a large volume of people will gather outside the store, this sounds more like a permenent type of thing. And lets face it, I doubt the store has these issues on a daily basis.
@Canino: lol, that's right. But any more stairs than three, and people just wouldn't shop there. That's just way too many.
@JadoJodo: Yes, you are wrong. WalMart knew that lots of people would show up. That's sort of the point of Black Friday. Gee, crowds might need....crowd control! WHODA THUNKIT?
Interesting spelling & grammar in the title!
Great. Now people in all the neighboring states are going to want to hop the border to shop at our new trample-free stores. It'll be a mob!
@Kogenta: Exactly! I was thinking boiling oil and other medieval remedies.
Now I am picturing a bouncy house/obstacle course they must negotiate prior to entering the store...
@Kaiser-Machead: Yeah, but the Montreal muggers feeding off your liver post-incident have the most charming accents.
That counts for a lot, y'know.
@Canino: OK. Good point.
How about the store manager passing around huge spliffs amongst the milling crowd one half-hour before they open the doors?
@Platypi: I believe I would shop at Walmart every day if I had to bouncy house obstacle course my way in.
@Trai_Dep: Also placement of columns, etc., when initially building the space ... lots of interesting experiments on how to build a big concert hall or ballroom so that people can exit quickly and efficiently in an emergency without bottlenecks occurring.
@Barney_The Plug_ Frank: We do have some good Special Ed. teachers here in New York. Why, did you need one for yourself?
@Platypi: As an anti-trampling measure, Walmart will require anyone who wants to get into the store to bring an old receipt, which will be carefully checked by a greeter upon entering the store.
@Trai_Dep: Their next Black Friday, in Manhattan only, offer purse-sized mirrors for a dime. That way, sure, 10,000 aspiring models will show up, but do you have any idea of how many waif can fit through a door at the same time?!
Guys, people outside of NY don't trample each other for cheap electronics. :P
It's kind of getting to the point that if you shop at Walmart, you're asking for trouble. So...um...don't.
@JadoJodo: I understand Walmart may have "encouraged" the rush, but it was neither a Walmart store, nor Walmart employees that ran over a Walmart employee. Also, while I did copy the phrase "ripped off the hinges" from the originating articles, it is unlikely someone actually did just that. Several people could easily break through a Walmart door with enough force. Honestly, I don't think Walmart is the greatest store in the world, I just fail to see how Walmart caused ("Cause: events that provide the generative force that is the origin of something") people to act like maniacs and kill a person.
@Laura Northrup: Only if your experience with New Yorkers happens to be made up of
people from NYC.
The rest of the state is actually quite charming. But, of course, we don't exist. Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Watertown; all figments of the imagination.
@Laura Northrup: For the record, people born and raised in NYC are nice. It's the jerks who move here for college and as adults that tend to shape your negative opinions of us.
@Eldritch:
That's the beauty of the US, state rights! There are lots of laws I take for granite here in Florida, that I wish existed in other states at times... FL's board public records law, especially. I was trying to get some records from SUNY Buffalo University and what a nightmare!
@MakGeek: One temp worker is crowd control? He had no training. He had no certifications. He was maybe qualified to clean up the mess left by the crowd, but he was by no means "crowd control."
@TVGenius: You can't put a corporation in jail. Corporations only know one thing, and it fits nicely in a spreadsheet with a "$" before it.
If you want a corporation to show it's sorry, take their money.
If you want a corporation to show that it "takes this seriously," take their money.
It's the only language they speak.
@bluewyvern: What's to stop the New Yorkers from crossing into neighboring states to do their trampling?
@JadoJodo: Because Wal-Mart cut a deal with the state, we will never know if a court would have actually found Wal-Mart criminally negligent. Whether Wal-Mart did this because they thought they would lose the case, or were cutting their losses, or because it was a PR disaster, or a combination of those things; we'll never know that either.
I think they certainly should have been better prepared for the crowds they should have expected. However, JadoJodo does have a point that no Wal-Mart employee was one of the animals that mowed down this poor man. How responsible is a retailer for the actions of its patrons' idiotic behavior while they are on its premises?
It would have been an interesting case.
There are a lot of laws in NY that don't apply to the rest of the country, special stuff about milk dates and cigs fireproofed or something. Us NYers are just special.