A car crashed straight through the front windows of VN Nails on Coral Way in Miami on Friday, coming to a complete stop only after fully entering the salon. Despite the dramatic scene, no injuries were reported among salon workers or customers inside.
The vehicle smashed through the storefront glass at 2520 Coral Way before ending up inside the business, according to WSVN 7News. Aerial footage captured by 7SkyForce showed the car resting amid debris where the salon's entrance once stood, with authorities placing traffic cones outside to secure the area. What led to the crash remains unclear, the station reported.
A company was contacted to board up the smashed entrance following the crash, per the same account. The salon sits in Miami's Silver Bluff neighborhood, a commercial strip where street-facing service businesses like VN Nails sit directly adjacent to surface parking and the multi-lane traffic of Coral Way, a major east-west corridor linking Coral Gables to downtown Miami.
A Familiar Kind of Crash Nationwide
Storefront vehicle incursions like this one are far more common than most shoppers realize. The Storefront Safety Council estimates that 60 to 100 vehicle-into-building crashes happen across the country every day, causing roughly 16,000 injuries and 2,600 deaths annually, according to the Storefront Safety Council. Retail storefronts and strip mall service businesses like nail and beauty salons account for nearly half of all such crashes nationwide, with restaurants making up another 20%, per the Jurewitz Law Group.
Florida leads the nation in these incidents, accounting for roughly 17% of all storefront vehicle crashes despite holding only about 10% of the country's licensed drivers, according to the Wolfson Law Firm. Statewide, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles logged 366,300 traffic crashes in 2025 alone — an average of about 1,003 crashes every day — including nearly 2,738 fatal crashes, according to Swope, Rodante P.A.
Pedal Error Tops the List of Causes
Nationally, the single leading cause of storefront crashes is operator and pedal error, such as a driver mistakenly hitting the gas instead of the brake, which accounts for about 41% of all incidents, according to Blockaides. Drivers 60 and older make up nearly 40% of all vehicle-into-building collisions, the largest age group involved in these crashes, the same research indicates. It is not known whether pedal misapplication, a medical emergency, or another factor caused the VN Nails crash, and WSVN's report did not specify the driver's age or condition.
Property owners have options to guard against these kinds of crashes. ASTM International established a testing standard in 2014, known as ASTM F3016, for crash-rated bollard barriers capable of stopping a 5,000-pound vehicle traveling up to 30 mph, according to Post Guard. Whether the Coral Way strip where VN Nails is located had wheel stops or bollards meeting that standard is not addressed in available reporting.
Corridor Has Seen Serious Crashes Before
Coral Way has been the site of other serious traffic incidents in recent years. In March, a Miami driver was sentenced to six years in prison for a December 2023 DUI crash along the corridor that killed a mother of two, as Hoodline previously reported. The busy thoroughfare has also seen other recent police activity, including the search for a missing 78-year-old woman in the surrounding Silver Bluff streets earlier this week.
The financial toll of storefront crashes adds up even when no one is hurt. A property-damage-only vehicle-into-building crash costs an average of $9,100 per incident, with national insurance payouts topping $100 million over a two-year span, according to Ideal Shield. For now, VN Nails is boarded up while repairs get underway, and no injuries have been reported in connection with the crash.
