Cars crashing into 7-11

Repeatedly in North America, we are told that there is a shared responsibility for road safety. Pedestrians, cyclists and other road users are reminded constantly through a barrage of messaging that its our responsibility to "make eye contact", "dress brightly", "wear lights at night" and so on.

So let's talk about buildings. Y'know those big stationary things that don't move. Do drivers drive into those? Yep all the time. But unfortunately we rarely have statistics on those and they aren't reported. Here's some stories of cars crashing into buildings from a quick internet search:

• Man dies after car driver crashes into home furnishings store
• Vancouver store hit by car driver for 10th time
• Driver crashes through produce section
• Driver crashes into downtown restaurant
• Driver crashes into Vancouver home, ignites fire

...and so on.

But thanks to a lawsuit in the US we do have a number.

A Chicago area man just received a record-breaking settlement from 7-Eleven after losing both his legs in a pin-in crash at a store back in 2017.

And that lawsuit revealed an interesting fact:

Over a 15-year period, 6,253 cars crashed into 7-Eleven storefronts in the U.S. - an average of 1.14 per day.

That's right more than once a day in the US, a car driver crashes their car into a 7-11. And that's just 7-11's, never mind all the other stores and buildings out there. All those buildings that don't "make eye contact", "dash out into the road" or so on.

Perhaps ICBC should hand out reflect stickers to those buildings, I'm sure that will help.