Hinsdale postpones greenlighting of safety wall outside car wash
Final approval for the zoning of a wall and bollards outside Fuller’s Service Center was put on hold by the Hinsdale Village Board of Trustees last week following inspection of the grounds.
About a month after a fatal car crash on Lincoln Street, the owner of Fuller’s Service Center, before approval by the village, installed 11 bollards outside the business.
“We had a structural engineer look at it to assess the effectiveness of the bollards and we’ve asked that some changes be made,” Village Board President Thomas Cauley said during the Dec. 12 meeting.
If and when the board approves zoning, Fuller’s is seeking to install a brick wall around the bollards to match the appearance of the service center.
The installation, while pending a final decision, was appreciated by some on the village board such as member Alexis Braden, who thanked the owner for taking initiative during a Nov. 7 board meeting.
For others the move was seen as too little too late such as the family of 14-year-old, Sean Patrick Richards who was struck and killed by a Jeep Wrangler driven by a 16 year-old employee of the car wash, before crashing into Fontano’s Subs across the street. Days after the July 17 crash, three people
who were injured while dining inside Fontano’s, filed a lawsuit against the car wash, the Fuller family who own and operate nearly two dozen car wash and repair shops and the father of the teenage driver.
On Dec. 13, the family of Sean Richards filed a separate lawsuit against the same parties for $50,000.
“While we cannot fathom what they are going through, we pray for the Richards family, all of those injured,
and our entire community,” the Fuller family said in a statement on Dec. 13.
The lawsuit cites two separate crashes involving vehicles leaving the car wash since 2007, neither of which resulted in physical
injury but did result in the damaging of other vehicles.
“Why did it take our young son’s death for them to take any action to protect the public,” Kristine Richards said at a news conference.