As part of our belief that hitting people with your cars is bad, Jalopnik maintains that hitting houses with your cars is also bad. People live in houses, and you should not hit them with your cars. Unfortunately for apartment residents in one Portland, Oregon building, someone didn’t get that memo and crashed into their house, starting a gas fire. As if that wasn’t bad enough, though, KGW News reports that neighbors estimate this is the 30th crash to occur on the property in the last 30 years.
The Christmas Eve crash took place at about 11:15 p.m. The driver hit a gas meter, causing the gas line to ignite. Emergency responders were reportedly able to extinguish the flames quickly and before there was much structural damage or active fires inside the four-unit building. Thankfully, there appear to be no serious injuries from the crash, as most of the residents were reportedly away for the holidays, although firefighters did give oxygen to a cat that was later treated at a nearby animal hospital.
Next-door neighbor Mike Powers said the crash sounded “almost like a bomb went off” and that it knocked out some of his third-story windows. He also said that he and his wife have recorded 29 other crashes that took place on the property in question over the 30 years they’ve lived there. In that time, the city has reportedly done little to deal with drivers taking a nearby curve too fast.
“I think what’s most important here is neighbors come together and organize around the intersection,” neighbor Nels Pierson told KGW News. “I know people have been fighting long and hard to change the roadway design, and this is the moment we need to do it.”
We’re also inclined to agree that something needs to be done. That is simply too many crashes. Close to an average of one crash a year? Surely someone can do something about that. That’s not a normal amount of crashing, right?
