Car wash company convicted for death employee
Zips Car Wash LLC faces more than $185,000 in fines from the N.C. Department of Labor after an occupational safety and health inspection found several serious violations in the wake of an employee’s death.
In january of this year Carolina Bree Franks, 26, died after becoming entangled in moving equipment, while she was cleaning the ZIPS car wash tunnel in Weaverville. She died on the scene.
Zips Car Wash LLC was cited with one alleged “willful serious” violation, two alleged “serious” violations, and one alleged “nonserious” violation of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act of North Carolina. Citation documents said the company received a “willful serious” violation because “procedures were  not developed, documented or utilized for the control of potentially hazardous energy,” news website WLOS reports.
Serious violations
The car wash company was also slapped with two “serious” violations. One accuses the employer of not ensuring safe walking-working surface conditions, noting two damaged sections of the trench grating that created slip, trip, and fall hazards for employees.
The second serious violation claims that authorized employees didn’t receive training to recognize applicable hazardous energy sources, the type and magnitude of the energy, and how to control it. One “nonserious” violation claims the company didn’t secure a cable to the cabinet, cutout box, or meter socket enclosure.
1,100 complaints
ZIPS has more than 245 locations across 24 states. According to news website Fox Carolina the car wash company has a long history of complaints, according to records from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). ZIPS is not BBB accredited. The BBB’s website states that ZIPS Car Wash, LLC has received nearly 1,100 customer complaints over the last three years. Here are some complaints made to the BBB for various ZIPS locations in 2023:
- “Part way through the tunnel, my car stopped and began to rock back and forth, lurching pretty significantly.”
- “…our vehicle was knocked off the rail…the car wash started making that noise again and rattling, but the noise and rattling got very loud till my wife got scared and started honking the horn and screaming.”
- “I was the first one in the car wash that day. It ripped my mirror off…”
- “I latched my topper and folded in my mirrors prior to entering as I was told to by [the] employee working. I went through the car wash, and at the end, I looked and noticed that the car wash had ripped my topper door right off my truck.”
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