HOW HOSPITALS, RESTAURANT CHAINS, AND BUSINESSES ARE CHOOSING PROFITS OVER PROTECTION — AND WHAT IT’S COSTING PEOPLE
A vehicle crashes into a building somewhere in the United States every 24 minutes. The solution — crash-rated safety bollards — is well understood, widely available, and inexpensive relative to the catastrophic harm it prevents. And yet, thousands of hospitals, fast-food chains, retailers, and commercial property owners still refuse to install adequate vehicle barriers where their customers walk.
This page explains what bollards are, what the law and the industry require, what the documented pattern of institutional failure looks like across two industries, and what it means for people who are hurt when property owners choose to wait for a tragedy before acting.
What Is a Safety Bollard?
A crash-rated safety bollard is a reinforced post — typically constructed of heavy-gauge steel set in a concrete foundation — installed at the perimeter of a building’s entrance to stop a vehicle before it can enter. Bollards have been used for decades at airports, embassies, federal buildings, and courthouses. They are not exotic or experimental technology. They are routine infrastructure.
Crash ratings measure the speed and weight of vehicle a bollard can stop. The S20 rating — meaning the bollard can stop a 5,000-lb vehicle traveling 20 mph — has been identified by major health systems as the minimum industry standard for hospital and emergency room entrances. A properly rated and installed bollard stops a vehicle completely. It does not impede wheelchairs, ambulances, pedestrians, or patient drop-off vehicles. It is simply an immovable object placed between the driveway and the building.
Bollards are not new, not expensive relative to construction budgets, and not technically complex. The reason so many facilities lack them is not ignorance. It is priority — and in many cases, active delay.
What Is Not a Bollard
In the aftermath of vehicle intrusion incidents, some property owners have installed decorative stainless steel posts that look like bollards but are not crash-rated. These cosmetic installations are set in shallow foundations, are not designed or engineered by qualified bollard experts, and may not stop a vehicle traveling more than walking speed. Major health systems have internally identified S20 as their minimum standard. Some of the posts installed after high-profile incidents fall significantly below that standard by the institution’s own acknowledgment.
Installing non-rated posts after a tragedy, for public relations purposes, while knowing those posts do not meet the institution’s own stated standard, is not remediation. It is evidence of continued conscious indifference — and potentially additional gross negligence.
What the Industry Has Required — for Years
The absence of legal codes specifically mandating bollards is a defense that responsible property owners do not rely on. The standard of care is set by industry guidelines, professional associations, and internal policies — not just statutes. In the hospital context, the requirement for vehicle barrier protection at emergency room entrances has been explicit and public for well over a decade:
- The International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS) has called for physical barrier protection at emergency room entrances since at least 2012. IAHSS guidelines are incorporated by reference into the physical risk policies of major health systems, including HCA Healthcare.
- In June 2020, the IAHSS published the third edition of the Security Design Guidelines for Healthcare Facilities (SDGHF) in collaboration with the American Society for Health Care Engineering. Those guidelines explicitly call for hospitals to use “solid physical barriers such as bollards” to prevent accidental or intentional vehicle ramming incidents, “minimizing the likelihood of injury or damage by vehicles to pedestrians, equipment and structures.”
- CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) policies adopted by major health systems specifically identify vehicle penetration protection as a required element at main entrances and emergency department areas.
- Internal safety inspection checklists used by major health system safety departments include explicit line items asking whether bollards are installed at entrances to protect against vehicle ramming.
St. David’s and its national operating partner HCA Healthcare had all of these. They had the policies. They had the checklists. They conducted inspections at some of their hospitals and installed bollards where inspections identified them as missing. What they didn’t do was apply the same scrutiny to all of their facilities — including the one where the Bernards were struck.
“St. David’s corporate representative admitted that just because there was no law or code requiring bollards doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have been installed and protecting people. They knew it. They had a national program to inspect for bollards and install them. They installed them at some of their other hospitals — because it was the right thing to do. Because protecting patients matters more than doing the legal minimum.”
— Bernard v. St. David’s Healthcare Partnership — Plaintiffs’ First Amended Petition (2025)
The Drive-Through Problem: When the Business Model Is the Hazard
Hospitals are not the only institutions that have knowingly placed pedestrians in the path of vehicles. Fast-food drive-through lanes present a structurally identical risk — and in some respects a more culpable one, because the danger is baked into the revenue model.
A drive-through is engineered to bring vehicles slowly alongside a building, past the same sidewalks, entrances, and pedestrian areas that customers on foot use simultaneously. The business collects revenue from both groups at once. The pedestrian customers on the sidewalk and the vehicle customers in the lane are deliberately co-located. There is no operational necessity for that arrangement to be unprotected — the bollards that would separate vehicles from pedestrians are cheap, do not impede the drive-through, and do not obstruct foot traffic. The decision not to install them is a cost decision, not a design constraint.
The risk is highest at locations near bars, entertainment districts, and college campuses, particularly late at night. A fast-food chain that chooses to stay open until 3:30 a.m. — specifically because bars close at 2 a.m. and the post-bar crowd is profitable — has made an affirmative decision to attract impaired drivers to a location where their customers on foot are standing unprotected, inches from the drive-through lane. That is not a passive failure to foresee a risk. It is an active business decision that creates one.
What discovery reveals in fast-food cases
The same categories of evidence that expose institutional failure in hospital cases exist in restaurant chain cases: prior vehicle intrusion incidents at the same location or other chain locations, internal safety audits, franchise operations manuals that address or omit pedestrian protection, selective installation of bollards to protect equipment while leaving customer areas unprotected, and post-incident remediation that contradicts pre-incident feasibility claims. In the Vijay case against Raising Cane’s, bollards were already present at the same location — protecting Cane’s own property — when the crash that injured Vaishu occurred. The company knew exactly what bollards were and what they did. It chose where to put them.
“Cane’s knew or should have known of the danger of vehicle intrusion at the premises. They knew the solution was in use around the country, around the state, around the city, and even at this very location. They chose not to use it to protect people.”
— Vijay v. Raising Cane’s Restaurants, LLC — Plaintiff’s Original Petition (2025)
Vehicle intrusion liability cases reveal a remarkably consistent pattern across different industries and institutions. Understanding this pattern is essential to understanding both the legal theory and the discovery strategy in these cases.
Stage 1: Policy adoption without implementation
The institution adopts safety policies — whether CPTED standards, IAHSS guidelines, or internal security frameworks — that acknowledge the vehicle intrusion risk and call for protective measures. Bollards are installed at some locations. Others are left unprotected, often for budget or bureaucratic reasons that are never formally documented.
Stage 2: Inspection programs that don’t reach all facilities
The institution launches a safety inspection program. Inspectors visit some facilities, identify missing bollards, and recommend or order installation. Other facilities — sometimes the majority — are skipped. The internal communications explaining why certain facilities weren’t inspected often reveal everything: the inspector was too busy, the facility wasn’t on the list, management didn’t prioritize it. In the Bernard case, 7 of 9 St. David’s hospitals had never been inspected for bollards. The HCA inspector responsible for Central Texas safety assessments lived less than one mile from the NAMC facility. He admitted that if he had inspected NAMC, he would have recommended bollards at the exact entrance where the Bernards were struck.
Stage 3: The incident occurs
A driver — intoxicated, distracted, experiencing a medical event, or simply making a pedal error — loses control and crashes through an unprotected entrance. People inside are struck. The institution’s public statement emphasizes the driver’s conduct. The property owner’s failure is not mentioned.
Stage 4: The post-incident defense narrative
The institution claims bollards were not feasible, that the incident was unforeseeable, and that no law required them to install protective barriers. In many cases, these claims are demonstrably false — and the defendant’s own subsequent conduct proves it. When bollards go up within weeks of an incident that was allegedly unforeseeable, foreseeability is no longer a viable defense.
Stage 5: Cosmetic remediation
Non-rated or underrated posts are installed, often quickly and without engineering oversight, to create the appearance of compliance. The institution claims it has addressed the problem. In fact, the posts installed may not stop a vehicle at meaningful speed. The institution knows this. The gap between what was installed and what the institution’s own standards require is itself evidence of ongoing conscious indifference.
Media Coverage and Active Litigation
These cases have received significant media attention and are actively in litigation in Travis County, Texas.
KXAN Austin — “Preventing Disaster” Series
KXAN ran a multi-part investigative series examining vehicle intrusion incidents at hospitals, the availability of bollard protection, and the failure of major health systems to universally deploy it. The series documented the scope of the problem and profiled the Bernard family and other victims. Available at kxan.com/preventing-disaster.
KXAN Austin — Raising Cane’s Coverage
KXAN also reported directly on the Vijay lawsuit against Raising Cane’s, covering Vaishu’s injuries, the bollard theory of liability, and the broader fast-food drive-through risk. The article is available at kxan.com/news/local/austin/ut-student-injured-in-raising-canes-crash-files-lawsuit/
Active Litigation
Bernard v. St. David’s Healthcare Partnership, L.P., LLP — Travis County District Court, Cause No. D-1-GN-24-003215. Hospital emergency room entrance, vehicle intrusion, catastrophic injuries to family of four including two minor children.
Vijay v. Raising Cane’s Restaurants, LLC — Travis County District Court, Cause No. D-1-GN-25-010177. Fast-food drive-through lane, vehicle onto pedestrian sidewalk, catastrophic traumatic brain injury to 21-year-old university student.
Together these cases represent the full spectrum of the vehicle intrusion / bollard liability problem: institutions that protect their own property and equipment with bollards while leaving the people on their premises unprotected. The discovery record developing in both cases is producing evidence applicable to vehicle intrusion cases across industries and across the country.
If You Are an Attorney with a Similar Case
We welcome co-counsel inquiries from plaintiffs’ attorneys across the country who have vehicle intrusion cases and want to leverage what we have developed in the Bernard and Vijay litigation. The discovery record, expert relationships, and legal theory we have built in both cases translate directly to cases against hospital systems, restaurant chains, retailers, and other commercial property owners who have failed to install adequate vehicle barriers where their customers walk.
The Vijay case opens a significant new front: fast-food and quick-service restaurant chains with drive-through operations near college campuses and entertainment districts. If you have a case involving a vehicle intrusion onto or alongside a drive-through lane — particularly late-night, near a university, or involving a chain with prior incident history — the theory and discovery roadmap we have developed apply directly.
We are also available to consult on bollard-adjacent premises liability theories — inadequate wheel stops, insufficient curbing, drive-through lane design, parking structure barrier failures, and pedestrian-vehicle separation failures in any commercial context.
Contact Sean Breen at sbreen@howrybreen.com or (512) 430-4844.