Our garage door, despite its size, weight and how much you use it, seems to be out of our mind almost all the time. That is, until it malfunctions and ruins your day, or worse, damages your car or injures a person. It’s not just your garage door that poses a risk if it closes when it shouldn’t or drops altogether; the other major physical risk is the garage door’s springs. When those break, they can severely injure somebody… or your car and stuff.

Think we’re just trying to scare you? We’ve got receipts. Here are some stats on garage door accidents and injuries:

The Statistics on Injuries from Garage Doors & Springs

• In the US, over 30,000 people per year are injured or killed by garage doors.
• A meta-analysis in 1996 found that, from 1974-1996 at least 85 children died or had permanent brain damage from incidents involving garage doors. Most often, these were times when a child got ahold of the garage door opener remote, but others are because of bad garage door design or installation. The study further found, through testing, that 40% of garage door openers failed to reverse when closing on a child-sized CPR dummy.
• A 2014 article reported 7550 Americans per year suffer pinch injuries from fingers caught between garage door panels, which often result in amputation; 2100 Americans per year suffer crushing injuries from falling garage doors. As well, something referred to as “race to beat the door” – when people trying to run through a door before it fully closes – causes nearly 200 serious injuries each year.

Okay, so maybe it is a bit scary, which is why in the early 90’s consumer safety standards for garage door openers made automatic reverse features compulsory. But in all honesty, the vast majority of these injuries could have been avoided with some common sense… and keeping track of your ornery toddler.

6 Ways to Shore up Garage Door Safety

1. Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance.

We’re never going to stop saying it: having your garage door and its opener inspected and maintained by a professional door installer on a yearly or bi-yearly basis has so many advantages, from saving on garage door repair costs to extending the life of your door to keeping your family safe from a major issue with the garage door that could have been figured out early on with an inspection.

2. Stay away from a moving garage door.

This one’s pretty easy; do you really need to run under your garage door as it closes? No. Do you really need to stand directly behind it as it opens? Also no. And remember – your kids will look to you for what’s acceptable garage door behavior – so be mindful of that.

3. Don’t keep using a broken garage door.

This is what emergency garage door repairs are for. Are your springs bent, stretched or broken? Is the door off balance or off track? Is the opener having trouble opening and closing the garage door properly? Continuing to use a broken garage door is asking for problems. Stop and call a professional door repair and maintenance company for emergency service.

4. Keep all the appropriate garage door parts well-lubricated.

This one’s easy, and it doesn’t take a lot of time at all. Every few months, you should walk around your garage door’s infrastructure and lubricate the door’s hardware and parts. Except the tracks; don’t do those.

5. Check the auto-reverse feature of the garage door opener periodically.

That whole thing where 40% of the time garage doors don’t reverse on child-size objects? It’s probably a good idea to check that reverse feature of your garage door opener out every so often, as well as to clean the sensor eyes. But, like, use a paper towel roll or something… not your child.

6. Keep the opener remote away from kids.

Ever thought about putting up one of those key hangers near your front door? If not, you may as well – it’ll drastically cut down the amount of times you struggle to find your keys. Mount it at adult eye level and keep your garage door opener remote there; it’ll keep it safe from curious kids and you’ll always know where it is. Or keep the opener remote in your car and your car locked even when it’s in the garage.Implement all these safety tips and you’ll be able to rest easy that your garage door isn’t dangerous at all.