On a Saturday afternoon, the parking garage at Rego Center is a city of its own. Drivers circle for spaces near the elevators. Shoppers push overloaded carts toward their cars. Parents juggle toddlers and bags. Delivery vans and rideshare cars weave in for pickups. Over at Queens Center Mall nearby, the scene is the same. Big-box shopping garages pack an enormous amount of activity into tight concrete spaces, and the combination of cars, carts and crowds creates hazards you do not find in an ordinary garage.
This article focuses on those shopping-garage hazards: runaway carts, crowded aisles, children, seniors, and the legal questions that follow. If you were hurt in a Rego Park shopping garage and are looking for a parking garage accident lawyer in Rego Park, here is what you should know.
Hazard 1: Shopping Carts
Shopping carts cause more injuries than most people realize, both to the people pushing them and to people they hit. National injury data collected by the Consumer Product Safety Commission have long shown tens of thousands of emergency room visits each year related to shopping carts, many involving young children falling from carts.
In garages, cart injuries include:
- Carts rolling down sloped garage floors and striking people or cars.
- Children falling from cart seats or baskets onto concrete.
- Carts tipping over on uneven surfaces or curbs.
- Defective carts with broken wheels or child seat straps.
- Shoppers tripping over carts abandoned in aisles or near cart corrals.
The law: A store or property owner may be liable if it failed to maintain carts in safe condition, failed to collect stray carts in a reasonable time, or designed cart corrals and garage slopes in ways that foreseeably caused runaway carts. Manufacturers may be liable for defective cart designs, such as unsafe child seats. A shopper who let a cart roll away and hit someone may also be responsible.
Hazard 2: Crowded Aisles and Distracted Drivers
Drivers in shopping garages are looking for spaces, not pedestrians. They back out quickly, cut corners and speed toward exits. Pedestrians walk down the middle of aisles with carts and children.
The law: When a car strikes a pedestrian in a garage, New York’s motor vehicle rules apply. The pedestrian is generally entitled to no-fault benefits through a household auto policy or, if none, the striking vehicle’s policy, and can pursue the driver if the injury meets the serious injury threshold of Insurance Law Section 5102(d). Drivers must exercise due care toward pedestrians, including in garages and lots. The garage owner may share responsibility if poor design, missing signage or inadequate lighting contributed.
Hazard 3: Children
Small children are hard for drivers to see, especially behind SUVs and between parked cars. Children also run unpredictably and climb on carts.
The law: Children’s claims have special protections in New York. The statute of limitations for a minor’s injury claim is generally paused until age 18, although no-fault and Notice of Claim deadlines still apply. Courts recognize that children cannot be held to the same standard of care as adults. Settlements for minors require court approval. Parents may have their own claim for medical expenses they paid.
Hazard 4: Seniors and Mobility
Many Rego Park shoppers are older adults, some using canes or walkers. Uneven pavement, wheel stops, steep ramps, dim lighting and long walks to elevators all increase fall risk. Hip fractures, wrist fractures and head injuries can follow. The law expects property owners to anticipate the people who reasonably use their property, which in a busy shopping center includes seniors and people with disabilities. Accessibility requirements under federal and city law may also be relevant.
Hazard 5: Elevators, Escalators and Cart Conveyors
Many big-box garages connect to stores by elevators, escalators or cart escalators. Shoppers trying to bring carts onto escalators, elevator doors closing on carts or people, and cart conveyors jamming all cause injuries. Owners and maintenance contractors share responsibility for safe operation.
Hazard 6: Wet Floors and Entrances
Rain, snow and spilled liquids from shopping bags make garage floors and store entrances slippery. Owners must take reasonable steps, such as mats, warning signs and prompt cleanup, especially in bad weather. Under premises liability law, the injured person generally must show the owner created the hazard or knew or should have known about it and failed to address it in a reasonable time.
Who Can Be Responsible?
- Drivers who hit pedestrians or other vehicles.
- The shopping center owner and its parking operator.
- Store tenants, depending on lease terms, for areas they control, like cart corrals near their entrances.
- Maintenance, cleaning and snow removal contractors.
- Elevator and escalator maintenance companies.
- Cart manufacturers, for defective products.
- Other shoppers, for runaway carts.
What To Do After a Shopping Garage Injury
- Get medical care, and for children, see a pediatrician promptly after any fall.
- Report the incident to the store and garage management, and ask for copies of incident reports.
- Photograph the hazard, the cart, the vehicle, signage and lighting.
- Get names of witnesses and any employees involved.
- Keep your receipts, which prove you were there.
- Ask management to preserve video.
- File for no-fault within 30 days if a vehicle was involved.
- Speak with a lawyer before giving statements.
Deadlines
- No-fault (vehicle injuries): 30 days.
- Premises liability and negligence lawsuits: generally three years.
- Children’s claims: generally tolled until age 18, but act promptly.
- Claims against a public entity, if one is involved: Notice of Claim within 90 days.
For shopping cart safety information, see the Consumer Product Safety Commission. For pedestrian safety resources in the city, see Vision Zero.
Let Us Sort It Out
Mushiyev Law handles shopping center, garage and premises cases across Queens. We untangle the web of owners, operators, tenants and contractors to find who is responsible. There is no attorney fee unless we recover money for you. Visit our home page or contact us.
Directions From Rego Park to Our Rosedale Office
Mushiyev Law is at 1 Cross Island Plaza, Suite 325, Rosedale, NY 11422, beside the Cross Island Parkway and the Belt Parkway interchange.
From Rego Center, take the LIE east to the Van Wyck south, then the Belt Parkway east and the Cross Island Parkway to Rosedale.
Rego Park’s Shopping Garages, Up Close
Rego Park and its neighbors host some of the busiest retail destinations in Queens. Rego Center, with its big-box anchors, sits beside the Long Island Expressway at Junction Boulevard. Queens Center Mall, a short walk away in Elmhurst, is among the highest-grossing malls in the country. Smaller strip centers line Queens Boulevard and 63rd Drive. Each has parking that ranges from multi-level structures to rooftop decks and surface lots.
These garages share a few traits that matter legally. They see huge volumes of traffic at predictable peak times, such as weekends and the holiday season, which means owners can anticipate crowding and plan for it with staffing, signage and traffic control. They have extensive camera systems, which create evidence but also show what owners could see. And they involve layered relationships among property owners, parking operators, store tenants and contractors, all governed by leases and service agreements that allocate responsibility.
Holiday Season Hazards
From Black Friday through New Year’s, shopping garages in Rego Park reach their peak. Drivers circle aggressively for spaces, pedestrians carry piles of packages that block their view, carts multiply, and snow and slush make floors slick. Garage operators know this season is coming and should staff accordingly: more attendants directing traffic, more frequent cart collection, more salting and mopping at entrances. When those precautions are missing and someone is hurt, the foreseeability of holiday crowds can support a negligence claim.
A Hypothetical Rego Park Garage Case
A grandmother leaving a big-box store with her grandson walks down a garage aisle toward her car. A driver backing out of a space, looking at a phone, strikes her cart, which knocks her to the ground. She fractures her hip. The driver’s no-fault coverage, or her household policy, pays her medical bills, and because a hip fracture meets the serious injury threshold, she can pursue the driver for pain and suffering. Her lawyer also examines the garage: the aisle had no marked pedestrian walkway, the nearby convex mirror was missing, and lighting in that section had been reported out for weeks. Those facts may support a claim against the garage operator as well. Video from the garage’s cameras, preserved within days, shows the entire sequence.
Shopping Garage Safety Tips
Hold children’s hands or keep them in the cart seat with the strap fastened, and never let them stand in or ride on the outside of a cart. Return carts to corrals rather than leaving them in aisles or on slopes. Walk along designated pedestrian paths where they exist, and assume a car backing out does not see you. Drivers should creep out of spaces slowly, use backup cameras but still turn and look, and keep speeds to a crawl in aisles. If you notice a hazard such as a broken light, a slick ramp or a cart rolling loose, tell garage staff right away; your report may prevent the next injury.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue if a runaway shopping cart hit me in a Rego Park garage?
Possibly. The store or property owner may be liable for failing to manage carts safely, and a shopper who let the cart roll may also be responsible.
My child fell from a shopping cart in the garage. What should I do?
Get medical care right away, photograph the cart and area, report the incident, and keep receipts. A child’s claim is generally tolled until 18, but evidence should be preserved now.
Is a pedestrian hit by a car in a shopping garage covered by no-fault?
Yes, generally through a household auto policy or the striking vehicle’s policy. File within 30 days.
Who is responsible for a slippery garage entrance?
The owner, operator or a store tenant, depending on who controlled the area and whether they knew or should have known about the hazard.
How much does a parking garage accident lawyer in Rego Park cost?
Mushiyev Law works on contingency: no attorney fee unless we recover money for you.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.