SHOPPERS in Ambleside were witness to a spectacular four-car collision Thursday afternoon.
"A whole bunch of damage and, luckily, not a lot of injuries. It was probably a pretty good show for anybody there that watched it," said Sgt. Ed Pearce, West Vancouver police patrol sergeant.
The driver, a woman nearly 80, was trying to park on the 1400-block of Marine Drive when the pileup happened, according to police.
"It didn't go so well," Pearce said. "She collided with one of the vehicles going by and then collided with the vehicle behind where she was trying to park and the vehicle parked in front of where she was trying to park. It was a little bit of a pinball game, which I don't think anybody appreciated."
Three of the vehicles had to be towed from the scene and damage is estimated at $5,000 to $6,000 per vehicle.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation. "The officers are looking at now whether charges are warranted and or whether this is a case of an elderly person that maybe should be retested by the motor vehicle branch and her doctor," Pearce said.
"From time to time, we ask people to be retested just to make sure their ability to drive a vehicle is good for them and everybody else on the road."
But, Pearce said, it could simply have been case of the woman accidentally stepping on the wrong pedal, which could happen to anybody.
Alcohol and vehicle malfunction have both been ruled out in the collision, Pearce said.
While the owners of the damaged vehicles might disagree, it was lucky that they were parked where they were as they stopped the errant driver from jumping the curb and running into pedestrians or a storefront, Pearce said.
