OXNARD : Vehicle Crashes Into Post Office but No One Is Hurt

A motorist who apparently mistook his car’s accelerator for the brake crashed through a large glass window at the front of the Oxnard post office on Tuesday, causing extensive damage to the building but no injuries.

The vehicle crossed a 12-foot sidewalk before smashing through the window and traveling another 10 feet through the office lobby, coming to rest after slamming into two wall-mounted stamp machines.

“Everybody heard it,” said Jim Hanlon, window supervisor at the C Street post office. “We went running out and there was a car sitting up against the stamp machines.”

Oxnard police said they could not identify the driver late Tuesday. Postal workers said the man was taken away uninjured by a relative or friend.

Hanlon, who has worked in the Oxnard office for eight years, said it was the first time a car had crashed through any of the large windows that run parallel to the front parking lot. He said it was surprising no one was injured, since the area around the stamp machines is usually crowded.

Maintenance workers spent the afternoon sweeping up glass fragments and knocking away all the remaining glass in the window. Service inside the post office was not interrupted, though a portion of the lobby was closed off for a few hours.

Postal maintenance manager Charles Sweet said it would take about a week to replace the window, which would be boarded up in the interim. Security was not a problem, he said, because the driver crashed into a portion of the lobby that is open 24 hours a day.