Just before 5 p.m. on Friday evening, more than a dozen fire units were dispatched to NW 61st St and 32nd Av NW after a minivan hit a house. News helicopters also hovered over the scene.
A neighbor sent us this photo and says, “The driver of the van lost control when his front passenger tire blew out. A parked small SUV took some of the impact redirecting the van into the garage wall.”
No word on injuries or the damage done to the home.
a dozen?????
MORE than a dozen?????
News helicopters?!
ridiculous over-response.
shouldn’t they be checking on the equipment back at the firehouse.
Mini-vans are out to get us!!
It came in as a heavy rescue. The 911 caller said a car went into a house. They don’t know how many people could be victims. They don’t have the picture that you have in front of you.
And Yep, that’s a despicable comment. Get bent
Prime example of why we need to reform our driver license training/testing. If you lose control of your vehicle when it’s going less than 40mph you have absolutely no business being behind the wheel. Sadly, in this country we don’t require people to demonstrate any real driving knowledge/skill the way other countries do and as a result we have a MUCH higher accident rate for the same number of miles driven.
My guess is this person tried to hit the brakes as soon as the tire blew. Note that the vehicle went off the street in the direction of the blown tire clearly indicating this person didn’t know how to safely handle the situation. Of course if you know how to drive then you know this is exactly what you’re NOT supposed to do! Tapping the brakes easily leads to a loss of control, especially in front wheel drive vehicles.
As for over response, if the call comes in as a van hitting a house it’s reasonable for FD to assume there could be several injuries and the possibility of a fire. Better to over respond than under respond.
The Previa I used to drive could be intentionally driven into a snowbank without fear of damage (beats shoveling).
Not sure how it would do against a house.
I agree w/ your general take on driver’s training in the US SeaSpider — Germans for instance are really well trained in how to drive a car.
But, unfortunately, a blow out is a surprise even if you “know” what you are supposed to do.
Then again better drivers in general don’t lunge for the brake as a first instinct at any odd occurence so maybe there is some transfer of good training into better drivers who then have better instincts …
You are right though — our drivers training sucks.