Our Y2k Crash

Hope your 2000 New Year started off better than ours. At approx 4:00 pm New Years Eve while watching the Celebrations around the world on ABC 2000, we were startled off the couch by three successive incredible crashes. A car driven in reverse from two houses down came full speed into our driveway and smashed into the back of our new 2000 Neon which then crashed into the back of the 1988 Blazer and then the Blazer and all 3 cars then came crashing through into the garage!

That's me on the telephone, it took the Gwinnett County Police 20 minutes to arrive and they did not issue a ticket because the accident was on private property

The garage door stayed smashed like this for 11 days as there was no Garage Door Company available to do an existing house because they were all booked up full with jobs for new construction houses.

The red car was towed away within a half hour, Donna snapped the two pictures in a pretty upset state of mind. The Fire Dept put down the dirt where gas was leaking from the crumpled gas tanks. The hood on the Neon is smashed because it actually went under the Blazer since it is so much lower than the truck. Donna's car was 2 weeks old. The white scratch mark in the driveway shows how far the cars were pushed into the garage.

We moved from this subdivision 3 months later as well as the neighbor in between from where the car came from and others we knew in the subdivision as well. Neighbors can make or break a community and unfortunately this one was broken.

People have been asking for the full details of how this could've happened, Here it is;

It was an extremely warm December 31st 1999 day in Atlanta, about 80 degrees and we had the front screen door open. It was just shy of 4 pm in the afternoon, Donna and I were watching the ABC 2000 Special and France was just about to shoot off tons of fireworks around the Eiffel Tower for the 2000 Celebration when we heard car tires screeching and then a loud crash just outside the door. We ran towards the front door and heard another crash and then just as I reached the door heard another crash and it was coming into the house! We could see our neighbors car from two houses down with it's engine running at full speed, the tires spinning, still driving in reverse pushing Donna's car and my truck into the garage and driving into the house when all of a sudden the back of the neighbors car buckled into the rear tires and stopped the tires and engine cold.

There was an Ice Cream truck coming up the street with it's bells ringing. The 14 year old boy driving the car opens the drivers door, gets out and runs over to the Ice Cream truck and gets an ice cream. His parents come over while I go inside and get the cordless phone and call 911. 20 minutes later the police arrive and say they cannot write a citation because the accident happened on private property (our driveway) and the driver is under age. He writes us a report and takes off. The parents of the 14 year old said they let their son start the Uncle's car all the time, they didn't understand why he revved the engine at full speed and then put it into reverse. The car then smashed the mailbox of the house across from them and was heading towards the living room of that house but there was a large tree in the front yard, the car bounced off the tree and got turned around and then headed straight across the street in reverse and smashed into our cars in the driveway.

It took 11 days for a Garage door Company to come out and put up a new garage door because they were so backed up with new Home construction orders that no Company could go out and do an existing home. I got a new job in March and in April we sold our home there near Atlanta and then bought our new home here in Gainesville Georgia in 16 days. We moved into another subdivision that was nearly finished being built. We helped start the HomeOwners Association, we didn't want what happened in the old subdivision to happen again.