On the whole, the news for the vehicle owner is bad,
principally due to the nuances of bailment and negligence
rules (combined, perhaps, with lack of choice). Applying
those nuances produces results that are inconsistent with the
degree of responsibility of commercial property owners in
general. Everyone has heard of a grocery store operator being
held liable in "slip and fall" incidents where the injured
person could have avoided by minimal attention to what he
or she was doing. The common factor in those cases is that
no one knows exactly how the "foreign" substance came to be
on the floor (which is similar to the lack of information in
parking lot cases). Similarly, most people have heard of
apartment or hotel operators being held liable because they
failed to take actions to deter criminal activity."' Parking lot
operators use their real property to make money from other
people using the property-just as grocers and apartment
owners-so why should the legal responsibilities be substantially
different?
There is a logical explanation for the difference. In nonparking
lot situations, the landowner invites others to come
on the property to engage in particular activities (e.g., to buy
things, to watch a movie, to live, etc.). In contrast, the park-