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Car Takes Flight in Santa Ana, Crashes into Second Floor of Dentist Office

9:19 AM PST on January 18, 2018

At 5:30 a.m. Sunday, a motorist sped down a residential street in Santa Ana, hit a center median, vaulted through the air, and crashed into the second story of a dentist office.

The driver, who was under the influence, and the passenger received only minor injuries.

Luckily, no other injuries were reported, but this could have been much more severe. A motel surveillance video showed a car going east on Seventeenth Street passed in front of the speeder a second before it hit the center median. And mere seconds after the car crashed into the dentist office, an OCTA bus passed by.

The incident captured the attention of most major news outlets. Even Time Magazine's Instagram account showed the image in their feed.

What's equally surprising about this event is how far the car had to cross Seventeenth, and it still did not hit other traffic. Seventeenth Street is one of the wider streets in Santa Ana, with this stretch from curb to curb being more than 102 feet wide. So yeah, the car flew more than fifty feet to reach that office's second floor.

While not much can prevent flying cars from causing havoc, the city has been working on making Seventeenth Street safer. Seventeenth Street is the site of a proposed road buffet that reduces the general travel lanes to four and adds a protected bike lane. But it will still require people to drive with care and attention.

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