An elderly driver backed a small sedan into a house on Fox Trail Terrace in Cary, Illinois, around noon on Tuesday, tearing into a garage support column and leaving the front of the home structurally compromised, according to fire officials. Both the driver and an adult inside the home walked away without injuries, though the impact was serious enough to summon neighboring first responders.
The Cary Fire Protection District responded to a reported crash with a person trapped in the 700 block of Fox Trail Terrace, according to CBS Chicago. Fire officials said the small sedan reversed into a home on the west side of the road, and the elderly driver was able to climb out of the car before crews arrived. The vehicle itself was left badly damaged, though the station's report notes the driver was not hurt.
Structural Damage Brings Help from Neighboring First Responders
The crash struck a support column for the home's garage, raising concerns among fire officials about the stability of the front of the house. Cary fire crews, aided by neighboring first responders, worked to stabilize and secure the damaged section, per the same account. Officials later deemed the home habitable once the area was shored up.
MABAS Divisions 4 and 5 share specialized response teams for incidents including structural collapses and trench rescues, according to MABAS Division 5.
Why Pedal Errors Keep Hitting Homes
Incidents like this one are far more common than many drivers realize. The Storefront Safety Council says storefront crashes occur more than 100 times per day and vehicle-into-building crashes kill as many as 2,600 people annually; it also estimates 16,000 injuries and cites pedal misapplication as the leading cause in more than 35% of impacts, according to the Storefront Safety Council. NHTSA has also studied pedal-misapplication crashes. NHTSA estimates that pedal misapplication causes roughly 16,000 preventable crashes in the U.S. every year, a pattern in which drivers over 70 and under 20 are significantly overrepresented, according to Hardy Wolf & Downing.
It remains unclear whether charges or citations against the driver are pending, CBS Chicago reported.
New State Law Reshapes Senior Driver Rules
The crash comes weeks after Illinois overhauled how it screens aging drivers. Under the state's Road Safety & Fairness Act, which took effect on July 1, the minimum age requiring senior drivers to pass a mandatory behind-the-wheel test to renew a license rose from 79 to 87, according to CBS Chicago. Illinois had previously been the only state in the nation mandating annual behind-the-wheel re-tests based strictly on age for drivers 87 and older.
The same law also changed how Illinois screens aging drivers.
Cary has roughly 17,900 residents, with those aged 65 and older making up more than 12% of the population, or over 2,200 people, according to Ultimate Senior Resource.
