A vehicle backed into the entrance of White Rock Soap Gallery in Lake Highlands on Wednesday afternoon, shattering the door and surrounding window, but the shop reopened yesterday anyway. Owner Keith Bailey said the crash happened at approximately 2:16 p.m. and forced his staff to spend the night cleaning up glass and boarding up the building before pushing to get the doors open again as quickly as possible.
According to Lake Highlands Advocate, a woman backed her vehicle into the storefront entrance, damaging the door and the window beside it. Bailey said there is no timeline yet for permanently reconstructing the entrance, and he acknowledged the business may have to close again once that work begins.
Bailey told the outlet the shop is trying to stay open as long as possible because the economy is slow, a pressure that weighs heavily on a store built around showcasing other small makers. The Lake Highlands location, at 10233 E. Northwest Highway, Suite 401, near the White Rock Lake corridor, operates under a gallery model, selling its own vegan soaps and candles alongside goods from roughly 30 independent Texas artisans, according to VoyageDallas. Extended downtime at the store doesn't just hurt Bailey's own bottom line — it ripples out to that whole network of regional craftspeople who rely on shelf space there.
A Decade-Old East Dallas Business
Bailey co-founded White Rock Soap Gallery in 2013 with Mark Fuentes after the pair bought a soap-making book at a local hardware store as a Christmas gift, eventually growing the operation from home production into a commercial retail brand, per the same VoyageDallas account. Since then, the company has expanded across North Texas, opening locations in Dallas's Bishop Arts District, in historic downtown McKinney in October 2018, and at Grandscape in The Colony, according to Community Impact.
A Common but Underrated Hazard
Wednesday's crash fits a pattern that plays out across the country with striking regularity. Vehicle-into-building crashes happen roughly 100 times a day at commercial and public spaces nationwide, according to data compiled by the Storefront Safety Council, which also estimates these incidents cause about 16,000 injuries and up to 2,600 fatalities every year.
Pedal misapplication or other operator error is the single leading cause of these crashes, accounting for roughly 41% of all vehicle-into-building incidents, according to research from Blockaides. That same research found retail shops, strip malls, and convenience stores are among the most frequent targets, with nearly 40% of storefront crashes involving drivers over age 60.
Texas Lawmakers Eye Bollards
The risks have prompted policy responses elsewhere in the state. Texas lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 660 in 2025 to encourage or mandate crash-rated safety bollards and protective barriers at high-risk commercial and medical facility entrances exposed to vehicle traffic, according to Reliance Foundry. The City of Austin took similar action in December 2024, updating its land development code to require crash-rated bollards at high-risk building entrances, a move that reflects a broader municipal safety trend across Texas cities, per the City of Austin.
Whether the Lake Highlands shopping center or city regulations will eventually require similar protective barriers at White Rock Soap Gallery's entrance remains an open question. For now, Bailey is focused on keeping the boarded-up storefront open to customers and the artisans whose products fill his shelves.
