DETROIT (WXYZ) — Three yards were covered in wreckage after a crash on Shields Street in Detroit. Homeowner Patrick Washington is now left with a major mess to clean but is lucky to still be alive.
“I hear a loud boom," Washington said. "I jump up like what in the hell is going on?”
Washington was inside when a 21-year-old driving a Trailblazer collided with a Chevy Camaro. The SUV destroyed Washington’s Silverado parked in the driveway before coming to a rest on his front porch.
“It's very traumatizing, very traumatizing,” Washington said.
The driver of the Trailblazer was the only one injured and was taken to the hospital in stable condition. Washington and other neighbors say the car was going at a high rate of speed, which is nothing new according to neighbors.
“Every day it’s a different car, flying,” Washington said.
These speeding cars, they say, put everyone who lives here in danger. This horrific scene could’ve been much worse.
“Just imagine if a kid was out here playing and a car flying,” Washington said.
That’s exactly what happened last weekend in another Detroit neighborhood, where 9-year-old Mai’juan Calderin was hit and killed by a Dodge Charger going the wrong way at a high rate of speed. His mother at the scene was preaching the same thing.
RELATED: Roseville man charged in ATV crash that killed 9-year-old boy
“I just want people to know, slow down man," Mai'Juan's mother Sophronia Dalton said last Saturday after the crash. "There’s kids out here man, I shouldn't have to bury my son.”
It’s a message Detroit Police Chief James Craig also preached this week following Calderin's death and a weekend where Detroit police issued 119 tickets, impounding 20 cars for drag racing, drifting and reckless driving.
“This activity is senseless, irresponsible activity,” Chief Craig said.
According to Chief Craig, 30 people have died so far in 2021 on Detroit streets from car accidents. Nearly half of them are due to reckless driving where speed was a factor.
“Just slow down," said Washington. "These are not no race tracks.”
As Washington was busy cleaning up, another car, a Dodge Charger, went into a building near 8 Mile and Groesbeck. Not surprising to Washington, but certainly preventable.
“They just need to stop flying up and down these streets period, flat out,” Washington said.
Many neighbors say they hope this accident leads to speed bumps in the neighborhood. Chief Craig also said DPD is increasing undercover patrols to crack down on speeders and drifters.
