BMW plunges 7 floors from parking garage

[DDD31]

     Featured on BIMMERPOST.com

Pretty crazy:

"Police said the woman driving the BMW, who had serious injuries from the crash, mistook the gas pedal for the brakes and crashed through the parking garage barriers."

http://wavy.com/2017/08/11/video-bmw...arking-garage/

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The gripping surveillance video begins with an SUV making a slow turnaround in a downtown alley, before suddenly braking as the driver hears a noise.

That driver, William Burch, had his window down and heard the noise — what he would soon find out was a BMW falling from a parking garage level, seven stories above, as seen in video released by the Austin Police Department on Thursday.

The BMW sedan crashes front-first into the pavement, before violently bouncing back on Burch’s Chevrolet Tahoe on July 13. The BMW then comes to rest on its roof, as nearby construction workers and bystanders come to the aid of the driver.

Police said the woman driving the BMW, who had serious injuries from the crash, mistook the gas pedal for the brakes and crashed through the parking garage barriers.

Burch was uninjured. He was on the phone with his mother when the BMW landed on his car. “I can just imagine what she was thinking when I had said, ‘a car just landed on me, I gotta go.’”

On Sept. 9, 2016, a 24-year-old man crashed through the barriers on the top level of the same parking garage. One of the barrier wires caught his SUV as it was falling and left his vehicle hanging precariously on the side of the garage.

The driver was able to escape with the help of a bystander.

The owner of the Littlefield Garage, located at 508 Brazos St., said these were the only two incidents of this kind they’ve experienced. KXAN reported the Austin Code Department issued the property a violation on Sept. 14, 2016, citing unsafe conditions, specifically unsafe barrier cable systems.

Safety improvements made since the incidents

After meeting with Austin Code, parking garage owner GTT Parking LP is making changes to improve safety, including looking into redesigning the entire cable system. Until then, temporary safeguards are in place on every level of the garage — plastic barriers filled with water that act as an extra buffer between cars and those cables.

“It is a little scary that it got two hurt. Two accidents,” Daniel Schuster told KXAN. It’s something he says he can’t help but think about as he pulls into the garage.

At first, he didn’t know what to make of the first incident last September.

“It kind of seemed like a fluke thing. I was coming into the office and I heard on the radio to avoid the intersection, the car had gone off a garage,” he said. But lightning struck twice. “The cables, I mean after seeing two cars go through you just kind of get nervous. You don’t want to hit the gas too hard, go off the edge.”

The seventh floor, where the July incident happened, is currently fenced off with caution tape. Austin Code says its made several visits to the site with the property owner’s representative, engineer, building official and city engineer. It was during those meetings the city determined the entire cable system will need to be brought up to current code.

A woman KXAN spoke with who uses the parking garage said, “Good to know they’re looking at a redesign and we need that. And I’m glad the barriers are in place, so at least we’re aware of what’s happening.”

Austin Code reports the property owner has been in contact with several engineering firms to perform the repairs and upgrades, with several proposals received last week. The city says since the deadline to get the garage into code compliance is later this month, the owner will need to file an extension, to accommodate the redesign.

[RABAUKE]

That's crazy, the front doors still opened. Great engineering, hope she's ok.

[rr006rbc]

Oh man. She survived?! That was like terminal velocity head into the ground..

Luckily she didn't nosedive into the roof of that Burb..that would've been GG.

[JMD]

Not good! Stunned!

[UPSROD]

Originally Posted by RABAUKE

That's crazy, the front doors still opened. Great engineering, hope she's ok.

And a convertible!

[Enkur]

Yeah heard about this last month here in Austin but didnt know it was a BMW!

[Eternal]

very few things on the internet stun me. This...wow.

[dzvero]

Luckily the other car didnt get hit where the driver is , that would have been disaster

[positiveions]

Lawsuit coming: "brake pedal too small and gas pedal too big your honor"

[///M Power-Belgium]

Chicks and the final destination with 3 pedals ...

On a serious note : Good to hear she survived !

[3M TAPE]

The real survivor was that Tahoe driver.
Final Destination missed.

[matowi]

I mean.... how do you "MISTAKE" the gas pedal for the brake?...

Good that she's survived. But... that's a hard learnt lesson in basic driving skills :/

[Chihuahua]

Originally Posted by positiveions

Lawsuit coming: "brake pedal too small and gas pedal too big your honor"

You don't know how prophetic this post was. Or maybe you do.

Woman is now suing.

[HKMP7]

Ridiculous
So if I mistake the trigger on my hand gun for the safety and shoot myself. Can I sue?:

[Timo96]

IF you disregard air-resistance and approximate the height it equates to about a 65kmph/40mph impact!

[KevinM]

Originally Posted by ZX-10RR

Ridiculous
So if I mistake the trigger on my hand gun for the safety and shoot myself. Can I sue?:

It's America. You can sue anybody for anything. If she is suing anyone, it would likely be the garage owner given the previous safety concerns there. Anyway, glad she survived.

[Audio Fan]

Originally Posted by KevinM

It's America. You can sue anybody for anything. If she is suing anyone, it would likely be the garage owner given the previous safety concerns there. Anyway, glad she survived.

Roll bars deployed.

[SakhirM4]

Christi Bowmer has had multiple medical problems and procedures from the crash, which necessitated shaving off the front part of her hair, and fears she will have back problems for the rest of her life.

She credits the safety features in her BMW for helping to save her life.

Bowmer’s attorney, Sean Breen, says she plans to file a lawsuit soon. She wants to make sure the “danger” in this garage and others is fixed, “so no one else has to suffer this nightmare.”

http://kxan.com/2017/08/11/woman-who...lls-her-story/

[HKMP7]

Originally Posted by KevinM

It's America. You can sue anybody for anything. If she is suing anyone, it would likely be the garage owner given the previous safety concerns there. Anyway, glad she survived.

I get that but responsibility falls on the driver.
"No pun intended"

[Tag]

[MalibuBimmer]

Originally Posted by ZX-10RR

I get that but responsibility falls on the driver.
"No pun intended"

The driver was certainly at fault, but the garage design was also inherently unsafe. A jury will probably allocate liability. I'd give her 80-85% and the garage operator the rest. Buildings and parking structures should be built with the idiot in mind. And people do make mistakes. That's why we have airbags and seat belts. (And many people -- proving the idiot theory -- try to avoid using them.)

As an example why the parking structure was unsafe, take the situation where a driver is backing out of a space and gets rear ended by some other driver, pushing the backing out car through the feeble "safety cables." Is that accident solely the fault of a driver who just rear ended another driver backing out (an accident that probably has happened a couple of times in the United States while you were reading this post), or do we hold the garage operator accountable too? The answer is pretty clear to me.

[Who's on first]

Originally Posted by Timo96

IF you disregard air-resistance and approximate the height it equates to about a 65kmph/40mph impact!

We talked about this at work yesterday... we guessed at 13 feet per story.

Our guess was 87KPH.
54MPH.