D-Bar Surf Shop in Whangamata took a huge hit when the vehicle accelerated into it just a metre from where staff usually stand. Photo/Alison Smith
Surf shop staff were miraculously uninjured after a 67-year-old Whangamata man smashed through the side of their building just centimetres from the counter where they usually stand.
Eye witness Noeline Morgan said she watched the man reverse out of his carpark space on Aicken Rd outside D-Bar surf shop and
back straight into a stationary vehicle that was parked on the opposite side of the road.
We could have been killed if we were standing behind that counter. He should never drive again.
He then accelerated into the side of the surf shop with such force that it twisted the window framing, sent glass flying and demolished bricks on the exterior, she said.
"There was a huge bang - it happened so quickly - and I saw the [stationary] blue car up on the curb and then the driver went back over the road again with smoke coming out of everywhere," she said.
