Parking lot accident fault is decided the same way fault is decided anywhere else, by asking who failed to take reasonable care. There is no rule that the reversing driver is always liable, no rule that a low speed collision produces no injury, and no rule that a claim arising on private property does not count. Two beliefs cost people money here, and both are wrong.
A parking lot collision needs the same care as any other, because the evidence disappears faster than it does on a highway.
The Rules of the Road May Not Apply Where the Collision Happened
Most provisions of a provincial Motor Vehicle Act apply to a highway. A private parking lot behind a grocery store is generally not a highway, so the signs painted on the pavement are the property owner’s instructions rather than provincial law.
That does not leave a vacuum. Liability is then decided under ordinary negligence, and the arrow painted on the asphalt is evidence of what a reasonable driver in that lot should have expected. The Nova Scotia Motor Vehicle Act shows how often its rules are tied to the word highway.
The Through Lane Usually Has the Right of Way, and Usually Is Not Always
Insurers apply a working assumption that a vehicle in a through lane, the wide aisle that feeds the parking rows, has priority over a vehicle emerging from a parking row or a stall. A driver who backs out into that lane carries most of the fault in most cases.
Most is not all. A through lane driver travelling far too fast for a lot full of pedestrians, cutting diagonally across empty stalls, or reversing themselves, takes a share. Fault is apportioned by degrees in every Atlantic province, and how that works is set out in the post on how fault is decided after a car accident.
The Fault Determination Rules Decide the Car, Not the Injury
Your insurer will assign fault for the property damage using the provincial fault determination rules. Those rules are a schedule of diagrams applied by adjusters so that vehicle claims can be settled quickly and consistently.
They do not decide liability for a personal injury claim. A court is not bound by them, and a driver held fully at fault under the schedule for the dent can still recover for the injury if the evidence supports it. Do not let a property damage letter close the question.
Police Often Will Not Attend, So the Evidence Is Yours
Officers frequently decline to attend a minor collision on private property, and there may be no report at all. Only what you collect in the first ten minutes fills that gap.
Photograph both vehicles where they came to rest, before anyone moves them. Photograph the paint on the ground, the sightlines, the parked vehicles that blocked the view and the position of the sun. Get the name and telephone number of anyone who saw it. Ask the store, the mall or the hospital whether the lot is covered by cameras, and put a request for the footage in writing the same day, because most systems overwrite within days.
Low Speed Does Not Mean No Injury
The commonest argument against a parking lot claim is that a collision at ten kilometres an hour cannot hurt anyone. The medical literature does not support the argument, and neither do the emergency departments.
A driver whose head is turned when they are struck, an older person with a degenerative neck, a person braced against a steering wheel: all of these produce real injury at low speed. Whiplash and soft tissue injuries are diagnosed on symptoms and examination, not on the size of the dent. Where the pain persists, the file becomes a whiplash claim like any other.
Pedestrians Struck in a Lot Have a Claim, and Sometimes Two
Parking lots are where drivers and pedestrians occupy the same ground at the same time. A person struck while walking to their car has a claim against the driver, and the driver’s liability insurance responds.
Where the layout itself contributed, a blind corner, a missing walkway, snow piled where it blocked the sightline, the occupier of the lot may also be liable. Those two claims are pleaded together and are the daily work of the firm’s pedestrian accident lawyers.
The Same Deadlines and the Same Caps Apply
A parking lot claim is a motor vehicle claim. The two year limitation period applies. The province’s minor injury cap applies to the general damages if the injury falls within the definition. Your own Section B accident benefits pay for treatment from the start.
Nothing about the location changes any of that, which is why treating the collision as too small to report is the mistake that most often ends these claims.
Parking Lot Accident Fault Is Worth Contesting When the Injury Is Real
Insurers settle parking lot files on the fault schedule and hope the injury never becomes a claim. Where someone is genuinely hurt, the file deserves the same investigation as a highway collision: the photographs, the camera footage, the witness, the medical records from the first visit.
If you were hurt in a lot and were told the claim does not count, the firm’s car accident lawyers will tell you what the evidence actually supports.