A woman drove her vehicle through the front vestibule of the Prospect Heights Post Office at 9 S. Elmhurst Road on Friday, October 2, around 2:30 p.m., jamming the front entrance door and closing the building over the weekend. Nobody was hurt, and police made no arrests. Three days later, the post office reopened Monday afternoon through a side door, though the main entrance remains closed while structural repairs are planned.
According to Prospect Heights Deputy Chief Mark Pufundt, the woman drove from the parking lot directly into the vestibule, and no injuries were reported in the crash. As reported by the Daily Herald, the post office was closed over the weekend, and no arrests were made.
Dan Peterson, the city's director of building and development, said the damaged area was secured and that a secondary access point allowed the facility to reopen once a city inspection deemed it safe Monday afternoon. The article notes that maximum occupancy inside the building was reduced to keep patrons away from the damaged section near the entrance.
Mail Access Limited While Repairs Are Planned
Postmaster Matthew Taylor said customers who normally have around-the-clock access to their mailboxes can only reach them during regular business hours for now, since the usual entrance remains blocked. Taylor said he hopes repairs can be completed within a week or two, though the post office still requires reconstruction of the front vestibule's support column before the entrance can reopen.
A Familiar Hazard in Suburban Parking Lots
Crashes like this one are more common than most drivers realize. An estimated 100 vehicle-into-building crashes happen every day across the United States, causing roughly 2,600 deaths and 16,000 injuries a year, according to national data compiled by the Storefront Safety Council. Driver error and pedal misapplication account for 41% of these incidents nationwide, per research published by Blockaides, while government buildings like post offices represent only about 3% of all such collisions compared to 12% for commercial buildings and 24% for retail stores, according to the Storefront Safety Council.
ASTM International established a testing standard in 2014, known as ASTM F3016, to evaluate bollards and barriers capable of stopping a 5,000-pound vehicle traveling 10, 20, or 30 mph in low-speed lots, according to Post Guard. Whether the Postal Service or the property owner plans to install such barriers during the Prospect Heights reconstruction remains an open question.
Post Office Has Seen Other Trouble Before
The Prospect Heights Post Office has had other operational hiccups recently. In June 2025, a 71-year-old local resident reported that a check mailed from the facility was intercepted and fraudulently altered before being deposited, according to a police blotter report distributed via GovDelivery.
Prospect Heights remained unincorporated until 1976. Today the suburb covers 4.29 square miles, including 4.26 square miles of land, and has a population of 16,058, per U.S. Census Bureau data, and has a post office. For now, that facility remains partially closed, its front vestibule still awaiting the support-column rebuild that will let customers walk back through the main door.
