A vehicle slammed into the side of a GetGo convenience store on Lincoln Highway in North Versailles Township on Saturday evening, injuring one person and tearing into an exterior wall of the building. Allegheny County dispatchers confirmed crews were called around 5 p.m. after reports of a vehicle crashing into the structure in the 1800 block of Lincoln Highway.
The person hurt in the crash was taken to the hospital, though their current condition remains unknown, according to dispatchers, as reported by WTAE. No other injuries were reported. The GetGo store, located at 1810 Lincoln Highway near the intersection with Mosside Boulevard according to employer listings, remained open for retail and fuel sales despite the damage.
Police Suspect Medical Emergency Behind the Crash
Police on the scene believed the vehicle was driven by an elderly woman who had experienced a medical emergency before striking the store, according to WPXI. That detail helps explain what initial 911 dispatch logs did not: why the vehicle veered off Route 30 and into the building rather than staying on the roadway.
While the store's retail counter and gas pumps stayed operational, its kitchen was temporarily closed until structural engineers could evaluate the building's stability, the station's report noted. The crash damaged one exterior side wall of the store, which directly affected the food service area behind it.
A Corridor With a History of Commercial Change
Lincoln Highway has seen plenty of upheaval in recent years for a stretch of road that still carries heavy daily traffic through North Versailles. Giant Eagle closed its nearby supermarket on the same corridor after 40 years in business, leaving the GetGo as one of the brand's primary remaining retail footprints in the municipality. The convenience store chain itself is also mid-transition: Giant Eagle agreed in 2024 to sell its more than 270 GetGo locations across five states to international retailer Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., a deal Hoodline covered when it was announced.
The same GetGo parking lot has a darker chapter in its history. A 2016 high-speed police chase that began there ended in a fatal crash at Route 48 that killed three people, resulting in a third-degree murder conviction, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 2019 reporting on the case.
How Common Are Storefront Crashes Like This One
Saturday's crash fits into a pattern researchers have tracked for years. Vehicles crash into commercial buildings and storefronts more than 100 times per day across the United States, causing roughly 16,000 injuries and 2,600 fatalities annually, according to data compiled by the Storefront Safety Council.
Pedal confusion and other operator errors account for more than 40% of those crashes, and drivers age 60 and older are involved in nearly 40% of all storefront incidents nationwide, per the Storefront Safety Council's research. Convenience stores and gas stations specifically make up roughly 6% to 7% of all vehicle-into-building crash sites in the country, a vulnerability tied partly to head-in parking layouts positioned directly in front of store windows.
That risk has driven bigger legal consequences for retailers who skip protective measures. A landmark $91 million settlement against 7-Eleven in 2023 following a storefront crash underscored the growing civil liability facing convenience store operators that fail to install protective perimeter bollards, according to Security Management. Bollard installations have increasingly become a standard risk-mitigation step across the industry.
It remains unclear whether structural engineers have cleared the North Versailles GetGo's kitchen to reopen, or whether the store had bollards or other protective barriers in place at the time of Saturday's crash. The condition of the person taken to the hospital also has not been released.
