The 20-Minute Car-Park Safety Audit (Checklist)

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 you are a PCBU for the car park you control, and that means you have to manage its risks so far as is reasonably practicable. You cannot manage a hazard you have not found. The good news: finding the hazards in a typical commercial lot takes about 20 minutes, a phone, and a route.

This is that route. Walk it once and you come away with a prioritised, photo-backed defect list. That list is the single most useful document you can hold, because it is evidence you looked, it feeds your hazard register, and it is everything a contractor needs to quote a fix without a site visit.

Before you start

Take your phone, a tape measure or a coin for scale, and ideally a hi-vis. Pick a quiet window so you can stand in traffic lanes safely. Photograph each defect with something for scale in the frame and note roughly where it is. That is the whole kit.

Walk the lot in zones, in the order a vehicle and a person actually move through it. Zones stop you wandering and missing a corner.

Zone 1: Entry and exit

This is where speed is highest and tyres hit edges at bad angles, so it carries the most vehicle-damage risk.

• Edge potholes where the asphalt meets the kerb, channel or road.

• Ravelling at the entry lip, where loose stones signal the surface is breaking down.

• Sunken or proud service covers in the throat of the entrance.

• Ponding after rain that hides depth.

Zone 2: Parking bays and aisles

• Potholes and depressions in the wheel paths between bays.

• Cracking patterns: a few straight cracks are early; interconnected "alligator" cracking means the base is moving.

• Failed earlier patches that have sunk or popped out.

• Faded line marking that pushes drivers into the wrong path.

Zone 3: The path of travel

This is the pedestrian route from car to door, and it is where a trip-and-fall claim is born. Walk it as a customer would, including with a trolley or pram in mind.

• Lips and height differences over about 10–12 mm, the classic toe-catcher.

• Crumbling edges along the walking line.

• Drain grates that sit below or above the surface.

• Anything a heel, a cane or a pram wheel could catch.

Zone 4: Accessible parks and ramps

Accessible spaces and their access aisles are designed to NZS 4121, which is tight on gradient and surface evenness. A defect here is both a safety risk and a compliance problem.

• Surface evenness across the bay and the shared access aisle.

• Ramp transitions and kerb cut-downs free of lips.

• Ponding, which on a low-gradient accessible route is common and hazardous.

Zone 5: Drainage and low points

• Standing water more than a day after rain, which tells you the fall has gone or a sump is failing.

• Water tracking under asphalt edges, the start of edge failure.

• Silt and grit building in low corners, a sign water is sitting where it should drain.

For why a puddle matters more than it looks, the short version is: water under asphalt is what turns a small crack into a winter pothole.

Score and prioritise

Do not treat every defect the same. As you photograph, give each one a quick rating on two axes:

• Severity: could it injure someone or damage a vehicle now, or is it cosmetic?

• Likelihood: is it in a busy path or a quiet corner?

A deep pothole at the entry exit beats a hairline crack in a dead corner every time. The aim is a top-of-list of safety-critical items you act on now, and a second list of items you can stage. A simple high / medium / low against the path of travel and the entry zone will get you most of the way.

Turn the photos into a remote quote

Here is where the 20 minutes pays off. Because you photographed each defect with scale, you do not need anyone to come and look before quoting. You send the photos, we read them, and you get a fixed quote in 24 hours. No "we'll price it on the day". Work is booked within 48 hours, with cones and a spotter for live lots and after-hours scheduling where access is tight.

For the worst single defect, our pothole repair process runs straight off your photo. For a lot with several zones flagged, the car park repair guide covers how a mixed defect list gets staged. Every repair is saw-cut back to sound asphalt with sealed joints, so it does not return next winter, and comes with a 12-month workmanship warranty and a dated before-and-after photo report.

Feed the hazard register

Your audit is not finished when the photos are taken. Copy the prioritised list into your hazard register with the date, the rating, and the action: cordoned, scheduled, quoted, or repaired. When a repair is done, file the before-and-after report against that entry. Now the register shows the full chain: you found it, you rated it, you acted. That chain is what reasonable care looks like on paper.

Set the next review date

Two reviews are non-negotiable in New Zealand: one in autumn before winter opens the cracks, and one after any significant storm. Diarise the autumn walk for late April or May so repairs land before July, our worst pothole month. A post-storm walk catches the edges and covers that move when the ground is saturated.

Run the walk, send the photos

Block 20 minutes this week and walk your lot in these five zones. Photograph each defect with scale, rate it, and you will have a defect list and a hazard-register update in one pass. Send the photos through and get a fixed quote on the safety-critical items within 24 hours.

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