A 90-year-old driver crashed into a building at the Burke Junction Shopping Center in Cameron Park just before 1 p.m. Wednesday, sending the vehicle fully inside Studio A2 Hair Salon and striking a 78-year-old woman who was inside. The driver was uninjured, while the woman was taken to a nearby hospital with suspected minor injuries.
According to CBS News, the crash happened at the shopping center on Coach Lane, with the California Highway Patrol confirming both the timing of the collision and the extent of the woman's injuries. Officials said the driver struck the 78-year-old woman inside the building after the vehicle entered the salon fully, rather than merely clipping its exterior.
Fire Crews Evacuate the Building
The Cameron Park Fire Department responded to the scene and helped evacuate people from the building, the outlet reported. CAL FIRE and other agencies then moved in to assess the structure and address any potential hazards left behind by the crash.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation, per the same account, and no additional details about how the vehicle ended up inside the salon have been released.
A Familiar Pattern at Strip-Mall Storefronts
Cameron Park's crash echoes a similar incident in Huntington Beach, where a black Tesla sedan crashed through the glass storefront of a hair salon near Edinger Avenue and Goldenwest Street, according to latimes.com. In that case, a customer inside the business, whose identity was not released, was hospitalized with minor injuries after the crash, which happened around 12:15 p.m. in the 6800 block of Edinger Avenue.
The driver in the Huntington Beach crash, described only as a man in his 70s, remained at the scene and cooperated with police. Officials in that case believed the driver had mistakenly used the accelerator instead of the brake, and said the Tesla was not in self-driving mode when it hit the storefront; that building was later assessed and not deemed unsafe despite the shattered glass.
No cause has been determined yet for the Cameron Park crash, and it remains unclear whether pedal confusion or another factor played a role, as investigators continue to look into what happened at Studio A2 Hair Salon.
