Building a Car-Park Hazard Register That Works
- PotholeExpert
- 24 hours ago
- 4 min read
A hazard register is not paperwork for its own sake. It proves you saw the trip hazard, rated it, and acted before someone fell. When a customer goes down on a lifted edge or a worker rolls an ankle in a pothole, the register is the first thing an insurer or WorkSafe asks to see. A car-park surface missing from your register reads as a hazard nobody was watching. That is the exposure this post helps you close.
If you manage the lot itself rather than the compliance file, our guide to car park repair for property managers is the companion read.
What a single car-park-surface entry should contain
You do not need a separate entry for every crack. You need one well-built entry for "car-park surface condition" that you keep current. A workable entry captures:
Hazard description — what the defect is and where (for example, "potholes and edge ravelling, main entry aisle, bays 12–18").
Who is exposed — pedestrians, customers, staff, mobility-park users, contractors.
Harm type — trip and fall, vehicle damage, slip where water ponds.
Risk rating — likelihood × consequence, before and after controls.
Controls in place — cones, signage, line-of-travel reroute, scheduled repair.
Duty holder and review owner — named, not "facilities."
Review date and trigger — when it is next looked at, and what events force an early look.
Status — open, controlled, or repaired and closed, with the date.
That is enough to be defensible and short enough to actually keep up.
Risk rating the surface defensibly
A rating survives scrutiny when you can show your working. Use a simple likelihood × consequence matrix and write down why you landed where you did.
Likelihood goes up with foot traffic, poor lighting, and a defect sitting on the path people actually walk. Consequence goes up where the people exposed are vulnerable — older customers, children, mobility-park users near an NZS 4121 accessible bay where a level surface is a compliance requirement, not a nice-to-have.
The defensible move is to record the rating before controls and after controls. A 30 mm lifted edge across the main entry might be "likely × serious harm" before you cone it, and "unlikely × serious harm" once it is coned and a repair is booked. That before/after pair shows you understood the risk and reduced it. A single number with no reasoning is the rating that gets picked apart.
Review cadence: why pre-winter and post-storm matter most
Most registers default to an annual or quarterly review. For a car-park surface, the calendar is the wrong trigger on its own, because asphalt fails on weather, not on dates.
Two reviews earn their keep:
Pre-winter. Water and freeze-thaw cycles turn a hairline crack into a pothole over a single wet NZ winter. A review in autumn lets you catch and price defects before the season that breaks them.
Post-storm. Heavy rain and surface flooding accelerate base failure and wash out edges fast. A walk-through after a significant storm catches new hazards while they are small.
Keep a light routine review on the calendar, but make the pre-winter and post-storm reviews the ones you never skip. Note the trigger in the register so the reason is on the record.
Closing the loop: register to repair to photo record
A register that lists hazards but never shows them resolved is half a document. The version that protects you runs a full loop:
Register the defect and rate it → inspect to confirm severity and scope → quote the repair → repair it permanently → photo record the result → close the entry with the date.
The quote-and-repair steps are where speed matters. Send us a clear photo of the defect with something for scale, and you get a fixed price in 24 hours and a booking within 48. For a live lot we run cones and a spotter and can work after-hours or around trading, so the repair does not shut your operation.
We saw-cut back to sound asphalt and seal the joints rather than dropping cold-mix in the hole. That is the difference between closing the register entry for good and reopening it next winter when a patch lets go — the same permanent-versus-patch logic in our pothole repair guide. The permanent repair carries a 12-month workmanship warranty, and we hand over a dated before-and-after photo report on completion. That report is the evidence that closes the loop: it lives in your register as proof the hazard was identified, controlled, repaired and documented.
Assigning the duty holder and review owner
Two named roles per entry, not job titles in the abstract. The duty holder is accountable for the hazard being controlled — usually the facilities or property manager with practical control of the lot. The review owner is whoever physically does the next review and updates the entry. They can be the same person on a small site. On a larger one, separate them so the review does not quietly fall off when one person is on leave.
Names matter because under HSWA 2015 the duty sits with the PCBU through real people. "The business is responsible" is not a control. "Sarah reviews this entry pre-winter and after any storm over 50 mm" is.
A copy-paste register row you can adapt
Drop this into your existing register and edit the bracketed fields:
> Hazard: Car-park surface defects — [potholes / edge ravelling / sunken patches], [location, e.g. main entry aisle bays 12–18]. Exposed: customers, staff, contractors, [mobility-park users]. Harm: trip and fall; vehicle damage; slip where water ponds. Risk (pre-control): [Likely] × [Serious] = [High]. Controls: cones + signage over defect; pedestrian reroute; permanent repair booked [date]. Risk (post-control): [Unlikely] × [Serious] = [Medium]. Duty holder: [name, role]. Review owner: [name]. Next review: [pre-winter date] + after any significant storm. Status: [Open / Controlled / Repaired-closed, date]. Evidence: dated before/after photo report on file.
Adapt the wording to your matrix, but keep the before/after rating and the evidence line. Those two are what turn a list into a defence.
Turn the register entry into a closed repair
A hazard register works when entries get closed, not just logged. The fastest way to close a car-park surface entry is a permanent repair with a dated photo record attached. Send us a photo and we will give you a fixed price in 24 hours, book it within 48, and hand back the before-and-after report your register needs. Get a fixed quote and close the entry properly.
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