A Subaru has driven through the showroom windows of an automobile dealership in yet another incident in what has become an alarming pattern of vehicles crashing into the indoor spaces of car dealerships. While the Mustang-into-crowd scenario at car meets has been the dominant automotive crash meme of recent years, the Subaru-into-showroom subset appears to be developing its own distinct identity as a recurring phenomenon. The most recent incident caused significant structural damage to the building and destroyed or damaged several vehicles that were on display inside the showroom when the crash occurred.
Dealership drive-through crashes typically involve driver error — most often confusion between accelerator and brake pedals — that sends a vehicle through glass storefronts at speeds that cause far more damage than the driver intended. Older drivers and inexperienced operators are disproportionately represented in these incidents, and some safety advocates have called for physical barriers between parking areas and commercial storefronts as a structural solution to a problem that is essentially impossible to prevent through education alone. The dealership involved faces significant repair costs and the disruption of operating without its showroom space during reconstruction.
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