The Gate Safety Gap That Puts Lives at Risk

Every commercial property has gates. Too many lack the safety systems required to prevent serious harm—and the monitoring to keep them compliant over time.

Automated gates are everywhere. Storage facilities, apartment complexes, parking structures, warehouses, loading docks—anywhere vehicle access needs to be controlled, you'll find gates that open and close dozens or hundreds of times a day.

Most work fine. Until they don't.

Gate-related injuries happen more often than people realize. A gate closes on a vehicle. A pedestrian gets caught. A child runs toward an opening gate and doesn't get clear in time. And in nearly every case, the incident could have been prevented with safety devices that should have been there—but weren't. Or were there once but stopped working years ago and were never repaired.

According to UL 325 standards, automated gates can cause serious injury or death if not properly designed, installed, and maintained. Yet many gate systems lack proper entrapment protection devices, and even when installed correctly, these devices wear out over time without regular inspection.

At Century Fence, we've installed thousands of gates over the past century. And through Century Security, we're helping facility managers solve a problem that goes beyond installation: how to keep gate systems compliant and safe over their entire lifespan, not just on commissioning day.

Why Gate Safety Matters More Than You Think

Gates are heavy. Industrial slide gates can weigh several hundred pounds. Swing gates carry momentum. And because they're automated, they move without hesitation—whether or not someone is in the way.

A gate that closes on a person can cause crush injuries, fractures, or worse. Children are especially vulnerable because they're smaller, less predictable, and more likely to be near gate openings without understanding the danger.

The legal liability is significant. When someone is injured by an automated gate, investigators immediately ask whether required safety devices were present and functioning. If they weren't—or if maintenance records show years of neglect—property owners face lawsuits, regulatory fines, and reputational damage.

The Five Safety Devices Every Gate Should Have

UL 325 is the safety standard for automated gates in the United States. It's not a suggestion—it's a requirement. And it specifies five categories of safety devices designed to prevent entrapment and injury:

1. Photo Eyes (Optical Sensors)
Photo eyes detect obstructions by projecting an invisible beam across the opening. If something breaks the beam, the gate stops or reverses. But they detect only at the height they're mounted—a child crawling under a gate might not trigger the sensor.

2. Safety Edges (Contact Sensors)
A sensor strip mounted along the leading edge signals the gate to stop or reverse on contact. These are especially important for slide gates, where the gate can pin someone against a post or wall.

3. Vehicle Loop Detectors
Embedded in the ground, these sense vehicle presence through magnetic fields. When a car is detected in the gate's path, the system prevents closure. Loop detectors are often omitted to save costs or disabled when pavement is repaired and never reinstalled.

4. Emergency Stop and Manual Release
Emergency stop buttons halt the gate immediately. Manual releases allow the gate to be opened by hand if the motor fails. If someone is trapped and the gate won't respond to automatic controls, these systems can prevent serious injury.

5. Warning Signs and Visual Indicators
Proper signage warns that the gate is automated. Flashing lights alert pedestrians and drivers that the gate is about to move. This seems basic but is often overlooked.

Why Compliance Is Often Missing—and Why It Stays Missing

Sometimes it's cost-cutting at installation. Sometimes it's age—older gates were installed before current standards existed.

But here's the bigger problem: even when safety devices are installed correctly, they wear out over time—and most property managers have no system for knowing when they've failed.

Photo eyes get misaligned. Loop detectors fail when pavement is repaved. Safety edges wear out from weather and repeated use. Without regular inspection and testing, these failures go unnoticed—until someone gets hurt.

How Century Security Extends Gate Safety Over Time

Installing safety devices is step one. Keeping them functional over the gate's life—and maintaining compliance as regulations evolve—is step two. And it's where most gate systems fail.

Real-time monitoring detects malfunctions before they cause incidents. AI-enabled cameras track gate behavior—hesitation, unexpected reversals, erratic movement—and flag potential safety system failures.

One accountable partner simplifies compliance. When gate hardware comes from one vendor, safety systems from another, and monitoring from a third, nobody owns the outcome. Century Security integrates physical barriers with digital monitoring through a single point of contact.

Because gates don't stop being dangerous just because they're old. And facility managers shouldn't have to become safety experts to avoid liability.

The Stewardship Responsibility

A gate that's safe today but neglected tomorrow isn't actually safe. Gate safety isn't glamorous. It doesn't win design awards. But it's foundational.

The companies that take it seriously—the ones that install the right systems, maintain them properly, integrate monitoring to catch failures before they become incidents, and treat compliance as a baseline rather than a burden—are the ones that protect their people, their reputations, and their long-term interests.

We've been building for centuries. That means we measure success not just in projects completed, but in systems that continue to work safely years after installation. It means partnerships that last decades, not transactions that end at substantial completion.

Because at the end of the day, safety isn't about meeting a standard. It's about making sure everyone who walks through a gate opening, or drives past one, or works near one, goes home without incident.

That's the standard we hold ourselves to. And it's the standard every property owner should expect.