Ever seen a car drive through a window?

So I was at the Open Eye Cafe this morning, enjoying a nice mocha, when there was this awful, ear-piercing, screeching-crashing noise. At first I thought something exploded, but do espresso machines explode? It turns out it wasn’t an explosion, it was a car driving through the window. :eek:

I was really freaked out at first, because my favorite table is right by the window, but I didn’t sit there because somebody else was sitting there. But nobody got hurt, and I think the woman who was driving is okay (just very embarassed). There was a little kid roaming around, and I’m just glad he wasn’t by the window when that happened.

What’s the weird thing about this whole story? After the car drove through the window, and there’s a huge gaping hole in the side of the building (did I mention this is a big window?) with big pieces of broken glass sticking out of it, people kept coming in and ordering coffee. Now, if you go to the coffee shop and see fire trucks and police cars outside and a bashed-up car sticking out the window, wouldn’t you just go across the street and get your latte at a different coffee shop? I think I would.

So now the Open Eye Cafe has a drive-through window, and I’m in the mood for “Strangest Thing That’s Happened to You” stories. Does anyone else have one of those days that started out normal, but suddenly turned really weird?

My friend and I were at a bar and she was really drunk. I told her to call a cab to take her the 2 blocks to her house, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She put her car in drive instead of reverse and came sailing right through the window. Very lucky she didn’t kill or hurt anyone.

Hey where is this Open Eye cafe? I’ve bene to one in NC but now I can’t remember where…Hillsboro NC? (I see you are in “Piedmont”) or is it a chain?

I was walking through the Chicago loop during lunch one summer day, and I saw a car fly across the intersection just ahead and slam into the back of a parked truck. Not just some generic truck, but a plate-glass delivery truck, still holding several huge pieces of glass. First there was the sound of the initial crash and the loud shattering of glass, followed by about 2-3 seconds of a shimmering sound as zillions of pieces of glass hit the pavement. The car immediately did a back up and turn manuever, and then drove directly into the glass doors of the nearby building. This crash had its own awesome sound affect as well. Then a hysterical elderly woman got out of the car, crying and screaming and generally very disoriented.
Nobody was hurt, but it sure was a cool thing to witness.

We’ve had this happen twice in the past four months in our small town - once at a new restaurant and once at the Starbucks (no one was hurt at the Starbucks) I think the Starbucks was planning to put in a drive-thru window anyway :smiley: .

The restaurant was a little sadder - a bunch of people were hurt there. I think one is just getting out of the hospital now.

Back in the early '80s I was visiting a shopping mall outside of Chapel Hill, NC. Out in the parking lot a huge area had been cordoned off and the Budweiser Clydesdales were performing for a large crowd. I was walking past the crowd on my way to the bank when I heard the sound of a car engine fully revved. Moments later a car driven by an elderly woman plowed through the crowd and smashed into the lead pair of horses. I will never forget the sight of a 2000 lb horse fly up in the air and land on its back on the hood of her car. I rushed into the bank and yelled for them to call 911 then ran back outside to see if I could help. It was pandemonium with numerous injured spectators and loose horses everywhere. Throughout the incident the horses remained calm and stood where they were and none were seriously injured. About a dozen people (about half children), were seriously injured. The driver had apparently become disoriented by the crowd and hit the gas instead of the brake.

First time I saw the thread title, I thought it said: Ever seen a car with a drive through window?

1998, Tulsa, front room of my house.

Been there, done that.

Several years later, I shared an office with the woman who had been the corporate coordinator for that event. It’s interesting to hear about it from an observer’s perspective.

A couple of years later I wrote Budweiser to ask if any of the horses had been injured and how they were doing. There was a long delay but they finally responded that all the horses were recovered and fit. I will never cease to be impressed by the way the horses reacted in that chaotic situation. They’re harnessess torn to shreds, people running and screaming everywhere, the car engine still roaring full blast; yet the horses stopped and stood quietly where they were.

You and me both, bro. Mid-June, 2003, I hear a loud bang, and come running out into my living room to see what’s going on. Turns out some drunken jackhole passedout at the wheel of his Ford F-250 and went off the road. The bang was him taking out our mailbox. I got to the dining room and the sliding-glass door in time to see him plow through our fence, coming directly at me. He stopped a few feet into the house, about ten feet from me.

Safety glass is miraculous stuff. I was literally showered in broken glass, and I was wearing only boxer shorts, due to the heat. I received only a tiny cut on one leg. He missed the gas main by inches. That cut was the worst injury involved.

On the bright side, that got us to finally buy a house while the duplex was being repaired. The new house was not a corner lot, obviously. :slight_smile:

Here’s where a pic from where I was standing. Here’s one from the outside. He’d backed up a couple feet by now, so he could get out of the cab.

I’ve never heard a sound like this before, and I hope I never do again. I had nightmares for weeks.

The people were not so fortunate (nor so calm). Last I heard, in the early nineties, the claims of some of the injured people were still working through the courts.

Here’s a little snippet about the Open Eye.

Seems we’ve had a rash of folks who can’t (or won’t) keep their cars on the street where they belong. I’m in the Chapel Hill area too; about a month ago an old lady backed her car into a table outside a grocery store where Girl Scouts were selling cookies. Then two weeks ago, we had this nutcake who purposely drove into the Pit at UNC.

An elderly friend of my sister’s made our city hall a drive-thru. She was coming out of the parking lot across the street, hit the gas instead of the brake, sailed down a few steps and into the front entrance of the city hall. No one was seriously injured.

The next week, with the lady’s car still in the shop, my sister agreed to take her to the DMV to get her driver’s license renewed. There were apparently no red flags on her record so she got it with nobody there batting an eye.

She was smart, though, and realized that her driving days were probably behind her. Never did drive again that I know of.

Isn’t it amazing how many times no one gets seriously hurt in these kinds of accidents? That’s a good thing but it sure makes one wonder. I feel sorry for the folks who do get hurt though. They’re going along, minding their own business and then Boom! What a thing to happen!

Those Budweiser horses, like police horses, are trained to remain calm in sudden situations. Imagine the damage they could inflict if they panicked. But, wow, I never knew their training could make them stand still in such a chaotic situation as discribed.

It happened twice in a little convenience store where I was a night clerk many years ago. The first time wasn’t so bad, because it was a little truck and I was behind the counter. The second time was not long after that, and after the company that owner the store had installed those big solid bars in the front to keep it from happening again. These three girls had come in the store, fairly drunk and stoned, to buy some more beer. I was up at the store, but not working because I’d gone off shift but playing a video game in the front of the store. I heard them gunning the engine but didn’t know why. All of a sudden, zoom, this big ol’ Pontiac sailed THROUGH THE AIR and in through the large, plate glass windows in the front. It actually hit the videogame I was playing. The night clerk, who was standing next to me, teleported back behind the counter. She was a short, plump middle aged woman, but she just :: blink :: and she was behind the counter. I kept playing the video game for a few moments, but the cord came out so I lost that game.

The car knocked all of the shelving back, like dominos, toppling them one over another. The worst of it was the ketchup and pickles mixed with glass all over the floor. The three girls were out of the car and all yelling, crying, etc. I reached into the car, took the six of beer back out (figured they didn’t need it anymore). The inside of their car reeked of weed. The car was still in gear, so I disengaged it and turned off the engine.

The reason the car flew through the air was the drunkest chick was driving and had gunned the engine, again and again. The force of the car must have slowly bent down the pole in front of the car. On the last try, she really gave it everything (I’m guessing she was wondering why the car wouldn’t move) and the now well bent pole acted as a ramp which sent the car airborne, albeit for only a brief moment. When the cops showed up an entirely different girl was claiming to have been behind the wheel and they all swore up and down that it was a problem with the car.

Previous thread on the subject

I didn’t see it happen, but I once went by a Starbucks right after a 2000 red Mustang convertible had crashed into its front window. Later I found out that a friend of a friend had been killed it the accident.

Yep. September 17, 1980 at approximately 2:30am. From the front left seat. More of a wall than a window though. I was in the house when I got outta the car. And loud and really annoyed old lady was yelling at me to “Get Out! Get Out!” The cops were not amused. Nor was my attorney.

We live on a rather accident-prone street. It’s a curve, and kind of rural, so everyone speeds. There are speed corregation thingies along the shoulder and when we’re laying in bed and hear the “unh-unh-unh” of someone driving on the shoulder, we always tense up a bit because ya never know if they’re going to keep veering off the road. That’s partly why we don’t trim the hedges or take the giant trees down from the end of the driveway. Built-in traffic stoppers! We’re only about 20 feet from the road.

UncleBeer, that had to be rather intense. :eek:

Here’s one that happened about four hours ago in Santa Fe:

With fatalities, unfortunately,