Teenager Taking Driving Test Crashes Into Examination Center in Minnesota

A teenage driver’s attempt to get her license did not go as planned when she crashed into the examination station before getting to the road Wednesday in Buffalo, Minnesota.

An unidentified 17-year-old girl from Monticello, Minnesota, reportedly put her 2014 Chevy Equinox into drive instead of reverse when the test began at about 2 p.m. local time (3 p.m. EDT), thus crashing the car into the building and bringing the evaluation to a halt.

When the teenager stepped on the gas, her vehicle lurched forward, jumped the curb and ploughed through the front of the driver’s examination station in a strip mall on 1st Avenue S., said Pat Budke, Buffalo’s police chief, Star Tribune reported.

The chief added the teenager was not hurt during the incident but her vehicle suffered serious damage. On the other hand, the 60-year-old examiner was taken to the local hospital with noncritical injuries.

The police chief clarified nobody inside the office was hurt and no charges were expected to be filed against the teenage girl.

In a fairly similar incident, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles License Bureau was shut down in February 2018 for repairs after a car crashed through its front window.

According to a report in Record Courier, no one was injured after the accident. Streetsboro police said a black Chevrolet Malibu jumped the curb in front of the motor vehicles license bureau at 9515 Route 14 and crashed through its windows at around 9:30 a.m. EDT.

Lt. Patricia Wain, a spokeswoman with the Streetsboro Police Department confirmed the driver was a woman from Aurora, Ohio. Wain said the woman “hit the gas instead of the brake at the wrong particular instance.”

Reports stated the car traveled the short distance over the curb and smashed the window and its frame, which resulted in major damages at the license bureau. The car was later towed from the scene, Wain said. She added the woman’s reaction to the whole incident “was actually pretty good, but there’s not a lot of time” to adjust to the situation at hand.

On their Facebook page, Streetsboro Fire Department also posted an update regarding the case, saying the woman was outside her vehicle when they arrived and the structural integrity of the building was not harmed because of the crash.

The driver was not arrested as the incident took place on private property and she had not been reckless.

“If she was doing 45 into the building and the car was inside, then we could be looking at reckless operation,” Wain had said. “It was an accident.”