DAYTON — The Miami Valley has an epidemic of cars crashing into buildings.
News Center 7′s unofficial count showed more than 150 drivers hit homes or businesses in 2023.
>> RELATED: Car crashes into Huber Heights apartment, destroying it
One of those was a crash last week in Huber Heights that displaced a family from their home.
>> RELATED: Driver crashes into porch in Dayton
The trend is already underway in the new year, with a car that crashed off Linden Avenue in Dayton and damaged the porch of a home.
News Center 7′s Mike Campbell spoke to the homeowner and to police about what drivers need to be doing to stop this.
“Well, it sounded just like a big boom,” said Vivian Booher.
Booher was in her kitchen on New Year’s night, with her grandson, his wife, and two great-grandchildren. Her husband was in the living room.
“He looked out the window and said ‘Oh yeah a car out there hit the porch,’” she said.
>> 2 juveniles charged after stolen vehicle chase
Booher said her cable went out and the power went out across the street. She called the police while looking at the smashed car. It apparently hit a power pole after bouncing off Linden Avenue and then it spun.
“He had to be coming pretty fast, he hit my car, plus the porch,” Booher said.
Booher now has to pay to repair her porch, pay to repair her car, and doesn’t have transportation to take her husband to his weekly cancer treatments.
Nationally, estimates show that cars into buildings happen 100 times a day. Those same estimates, by the Storefront Security Council, estimate 2,500 people die in these incidents and 16,000 people get hurt.
Booher is happy no one got hurt, and Dayton police said this almost always boils down to drivers obeying the rules of the road.
“A lot of it is just paying attention and slowing down your speed,” said Sgt. Gordon Cairns, Dayton Police Traffic Services Unit Supervisor.
The Miami Valley averaged a car into a building almost once every two days last year.
News Center 7′s numbers crunching shows that we are above the national average in how often it happens.
©2024 Cox Media Group
