Updated on: 11/15/2019
We’ve talked before about how the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) doesn’t do a great job of recording accurate information about vehicle-into-building crashes because they mostly occur on private property.
Luckily, the people over at StoreFrontSafety.org have spent the last few years searching through news reports, court records, public fire and police department records, and scientific studies involving storefront vehicle collisions. Through this research, they’ve found over 7,000 instances of cars and trucks crashing into buildings – shopping centers, strip malls, and roadside storefronts – since the beginning of 2012.
As it turns out, vehicle-into-building crashes are becoming somewhat of an epidemic here in the Seattle area as well.
Again, since government agencies don’t actively track collisions on private property (e.g. storefronts) as diligently as those that occur on public roadways, we have to rely on news articles and other types of public records to track the frequency of these collisions.
The Columbia City Source – a local blog covering one of South Seattle’s larger neighborhoods – compiled a list of various news articles showing the frequency of vehicle-into-building crashes that specifically occurred on Rainier Avenue throughout 2014.
Vehicle-into-Building Crashes on Rainier Avenue in 2014
According to those reports, there were a total of six individual vehicle-into-building crashes on Rainier Avenue alone from April to December of last year. The timeline of these crashes is outlined below:
- April 10, 2014: Car runs into nail salon at Rainier Avenue S and S Edmunds Street
- June 17, 2014: Firefighters respond to accident with car into building at Rainier and Genessee
- August 28, 2014: Car Crashes into Hair Salon at Rainier and Ferdinand
- October 4, 2014: Car Crashes into Building at Rainier Ave and Ferdinand St
- November 12, 2014: Another Crash at Rainier Ave and Ferdinand St
- December 20, 2014: Car Crashes into Zam Zam Grocery at Rainier Ave and S Orcas St
The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is working on coming up with a solution for a roadway that had 6 accidents in eight months. Traffic safety seems to be the general ailment for Rainier Avenue.
SDOT held a community meeting in November seeking suggestions and input from the community about possible solutions to Rainier Avenue’s traffic safety troubles.
If you or a loved one has been injured after a vehicle crashed into a building, it may be in your best interests to consult with an experienced personal injury attorney about your case. Davis Law Group has represented multiple victims of these types of accidents, and has the knowledge and expertise necessary to successfully resolve these claims.
Statute Of Limitations