Bria Brooks says she was simply riding the conveyor through her usual car wash when her Lexus RX 350 stopped moving, made a grinding noise, and was then struck from behind by a pickup truck — leaving roughly $4,000 in damage and a monthslong fight over who is actually responsible. The crash happened on Jan. 16 at a Gas & Wash on West 183rd Street in Tinley Park, a location Brooks says she had visited dozens of times without incident before that day.
Brooks told FOX 32 Chicago that her Lexus stopped inside the wash tunnel before the pickup truck behind her collided with it. She says the driver of that truck, a 2023 Ford F-150, told her the car wash machine had malfunctioned. A Gas & Wash incident report dated the day of the crash records Brooks describing the Lexus as “rocking without moving” and says she heard a loud noise; the report also lists scratches and dents on her vehicle, though it contains no written admission of responsibility from the business.
Brooks says a manager at the time promised Gas & Wash would cover the damage, which she estimates at about $4,000. She also says she needed a rental car afterward, on top of the roughly $50 a month she already pays for a car wash membership there.
Insurance Portal and Arbitration Addressed Different Issues
The paper trail only gets messier from there. Screenshots of Allstate's claim portal reviewed by the station assign zero responsibility to Brooks and place 100% of the fault on the pickup truck driver. But a June 30 letter says an arbitration panel later ruled against Allstate, meaning the insurer could not recover its payment or Brooks's $250 deductible — and the letter says Allstate was asked to pay part of the other driver's damages instead. The arbitration addressed recovery of payments, not the portal's fault allocation. A follow-up letter dated July 1 confirmed that Allstate's recovery efforts had ended.
Brooks says an adjudicator determined she had applied her brakes three times during the incident, a characterization she disputes and denies caused the crash.
Warning Sign at the Wash Entrance
A photograph of the Gas & Wash entrance shows a yellow sign instructing drivers not to use their brakes inside the tunnel and to turn off any automatic parking brake, warning that drivers will be held responsible for accidents. Brooks says that sign went up only after her crash, though the station says it has not independently verified when the sign was actually posted. Gas & Wash had not responded to the station's request for comment and surveillance video as of publication.
What Can Go Wrong With Parking Brakes on the Belt
The dispute touches on a known hazard inside automatic car washes. CarwashPro explains that shifting a vehicle with an electronic parking brake into park while on a tunnel conveyor can cause the brake to lock the rear axle even as the conveyor keeps pulling the front wheels forward — and the industry site advises drivers simply not to go into park mode while on the belt. It also recommends car wash employees keep quick, friendly tips ready for customers about these common mishaps. A similar scenario surfaced in a separate Illinois case described on Justia's Ask a Lawyer forum, where a vehicle was said to have rolled backward repeatedly near the dryer before being rear-ended — though that account comes from a questioner, not independently verified reporting.
How Illinois Law Treats Shared Fault
Illinois negligence principles can hold a car wash liable if it fails to use reasonable care in operating or maintaining its equipment and that failure causes damage, while also weighing driver actions — including whether posted instructions were followed — in assigning responsibility. Under the state's comparative-negligence framework, compensation is reduced by a claimant's own percentage of fault when responsibility is shared, and recovery is barred altogether if a claimant is found more than 50% at fault, according to the Illinois Department of Insurance. None of the records reviewed establish what actually caused the Jan. 16 collision or who bears legal responsibility for it.
