A car crash is awful enough without the added stress of a runaway driver. However, hundreds of thousands of hit-and-run crashes happen every year. Incidentally, another instance of a fleeing driver shouldn’t be a surprise. But imagine the surprise of one Washington D.C. motorist when another car forced them through a building and fled from the scene. 

A Washington D.C. hit-and-run driver struck another car, sent it crashing into a building, and ran like hell

It was just after midnight in Washington D.C. A collision between two cars on Georgia Avenue sent one car out of control. That vehicle crashed through the facade of a building before coming to a stop. Frighteningly, the position of the vehicle in the building prevented one of the occupants from getting out, per Fox 5 DC.

To add to the seriousness of the wreck, the other vehicle fled from the scene. Police arrived on the scene, laying down flares to keep traffic away from the scene of the crash. Fortunately, the violent crash didn’t result in any fatalities. Emergency medical services took an injured party to a local hospital. However, police say the investigation is ongoing. It’s unclear whether the authorities were able to find and apprehend the runaway offender. 

Unfortunately, hit-and-run instances are more common than you might think. According to data from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, a driver on American roads flees from an accident, crash, or impact every 43 seconds or so. Sadly, the NHTSA reports that nearly 3,000 people died as a result of hit-and-run crashes in 2022. That figure represented a 0.5% increase over the previous year. 

What’s more, a shocking 25% of pedestrian fatalities in the United States resulted from an impact with a driver who fled the scene. The numbers aren’t much better for bicyclists. NHTSA data reports that drivers fled from crashes that claimed the lives of 265 cyclists in 2022.