When are contructions intended to improve safety in a strata block actually a danger in themselves? Maybe when they aren’t obvious, would be an answer. Property lawyer and friend of Flat Chat Anthony Cordato, explains:

Off-street carparks are a legally required to have speed humps to ensure the safety of drivers and pedestrians. But while speed humps protect pedestrians from collision by lowering car speeds, are they a tripping hazard for the same pedestrians?

In a significant decision, the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales recently held that a strata scheme was negligent when a pedestrian who was walking to their car tripped on a speed hump, fell on the concrete driveway and was injured, suffering a broken right humerus (the upper arm bone near the shoulder). The Court awarded $250,499.06.

The facts

Shortly before 5:15 pm on 18 May 2023, Ms Grace Balacco finished work as a medical receptionist on level 4. She took the lift down to the level 2 carpark and started walking towards her car which was parked on level 2, when she tripped on a speed hump.

Her evidence was:

‘I was walking normal towards my car and then all of a sudden because not painted, it’s just concrete, it’s late, dark-ish. I just tripped over the speed hump and just went flying and yeah so.”

She marked in red on Exhibit 1 (photo below) where she walked, where she tripped on the speed hump and where her car was parked. The photo was taken a short time after she fell.

Note that the concrete speed hump is unpainted – it is the same colour as the concrete surface of the driveway. Note also that the concrete columns adjoining each parking space are painted yellow near their base.

After the fall, the owners corporation of the strata scheme placed an order for marking in yellow and black bands the speed humps and the columns and other surfaces in the carpark in yellow. The total cost was $2,900 for labour and $500 for materials/paint, plus GST.

The strata building was built in around 1987. The evidence was that the speed hump was in place since the building was built. According to the strata scheme, it had never been painted. The maximum height of the speed hump was 65 mm and the width was around 270 mm, which complied with the applicable standards at the time.

Was the strata scheme negligent (in breach of its duty of care)?

The strata scheme is under a duty of care is to exercise reasonable care and skill to prevent injury or other harm to others. The standard of care is to take the precautions a reasonable person would take against a risk of harm for foreseeable risks. (ss 5 & 5B Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW)).

Ms Balacco said that strata scheme was negligent in that it had failed to take reasonable precautions to protect her against the risk of injury, namely “tripping and falling on the subject unpainted concrete speed hump”.

She said that the strata scheme had failed to take two reasonable precautions:

1. To ensure that the lighting over the speed hump was adequate

It was shortly after sunset. The carpark lighting was on “sensor mode”. When motion was detected, it would turn up the lighting from 30% to 100%, The motion-detecting sensor was described as a “very good” system. The system was operating properly. There was a light above the centre of the speed hump (see photo 3).

The Court found that the carpark was “fully illuminated” (at 100% sensor mode) at the time of the accident. That is, although not “brightly lit”, the lighting “was acceptable and within standard”.

The Australian Standard is AS/NZS 1680.2.1:2008 Interior and workplace lighting, Part 2.1. A minimum of 40 lux is recommended and not less than 20 lux for safe movement in an underground carpark. At around the time the accident occurred, the light at the centre of the speed hump was measured at around 95-96 lux, at the edge closest to Ms Balacco’s vehicle it was around 41-44 lux, and at the far edge it was around 29-33 lux.

As a result, the Court found that the carpark was adequately lit and that the strata scheme had taken reasonable precautions (in terms of lighting) against the risk of harm.  

• To paint the speed hump  

The strata scheme said that a reasonable person would not have taken the precaution of painting the speed hump because the risk of harm was very low.

Ms Balacco said that the speed hump was a hazard. She said she was less likely to have slipped and fallen had the speed hump been painted yellow.

The Court agreed with Ms Balacco:

“Carparks are hazardous places. The design of this carpark forced pedestrians to share the same path as vehicles. … The speed humps presented a readily foreseeable risk of tripping. The risk of harm from falling onto a hard concrete surface was plainly not insignificant. The likely seriousness of the harm was moderate. The burden of painting this potential hazard yellow, no differently from the dozens or hundreds of other obstacles in the carpark, was trivial. Doing so would also enhance the effectiveness of the speed hump as a measure to slow traffic ascending and descending the nearby ramp.”

“I conclude that a reasonable person would take precautions against the risk by painting both speed humps yellow, … the same … as all the other irregular surfaces and obstacles in the carpark.”

Accordingly, the strata scheme had not taken reasonable precautions against the risk of harm.

There was no contributory negligence on the part of Ms Balacco: she did not have the car keys in her hand as she approached the car and was wearing short boots with no heels.

The decision is The Owners – Strata Plan No 31337 v Balacco [2026] NSWCA 50 (Leeming JA, Ward P and Free JA agreeing) (09 April 2026). You can read the full details of the court’s decision HERE.