A multi-vehicle crash near Northwest 23rd Street and May Avenue in Oklahoma City sent a red sedan crashing into the side of a Sherwin-Williams paints store Monday morning, leaving a gaping hole in the building's wall. Police say two vehicles were involved, and a second car was pushed into a nearby parking lot during the collision.
Authorities reported that the crash forced one vehicle into the building, according to KOCO, which captured aerial footage from its Sky 5 helicopter showing the extent of the damage to the storefront. Police have classified the incident as an injury accident, though the conditions of those involved have not been released. The Sherwin-Williams location sits at 2304 N May Ave, right at the corner of NW 23rd Street and North May Avenue, according to the company's own store locator.
The scene left two damaged vehicles behind, with the red sedan torn into the storefront's side and the second car shoved into a nearby lot, the station's report notes. No further details on what triggered the initial collision between the two vehicles have been released.
A Corridor Already Under Construction
The crash happened along a stretch of NW 23rd Street that's currently in the middle of a major overhaul. A $9.3 million streetscape improvement project targeting infrastructure and pedestrian safety along the corridor began in January, according to Route 66 News, with the 18-month project bringing lane shifts and signal updates to the busy thoroughfare.
Traffic advisories issued by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation last month addressed construction-related restrictions on NW 23rd Street, including lane restrictions elsewhere along the corridor. NW 23rd Street itself carries deep history as part of the city's commercial backbone — it served as an official alignment of historic U.S. Route 66 through Oklahoma City from the 1930s through the 1970s, per the City of Oklahoma City, which helped establish it as one of the city's main commercial travel corridors.
Storefront Crashes Are a Nationwide Problem
Monday's wreck fits a pattern that plays out across the country with striking regularity. National data compiled by the Storefront Safety Council and cited by Blockaides shows vehicles crash into commercial storefronts and structures more than 100 times a day across the United States. The same research indicates that roughly 12% of all vehicle-into-building crashes stem directly from traffic collisions in which one vehicle forces another off the roadway.
Commercial strips with dense clusters of driveway access points, like the stretch of May Avenue and NW 23rd Street where numerous businesses sit close to the roadway, tend to see higher collision rates tied to turning conflicts, according to research published by the Oregon Department of Transportation. It's a reminder of the broader access-management challenges facing busy urban corridors like this one, even as Oklahoma law gives police a tool to pursue charges if investigators determine a driver's recklessness caused a crash — reckless driving under Oklahoma Statutes Title 47 § 11-901 carries a first-offense penalty of 5 to 90 days in jail and fines up to $500, per the Law Firm of Oklahoma.
Part of a Rough Stretch for the May Avenue Corridor
Monday's crash adds to a string of recent incidents along the North May Avenue corridor. On October 3, Hoodline reported that a motorcyclist died in a three-vehicle crash that shut down a Northwest OKC intersection along May Avenue.
Police have not released further information about what caused Monday's two-vehicle wreck or whether any charges are expected.
