Car or Truck goes thru building inside roundabout!
 

Just drove thru the gate at Bailey Trail - Buena Vista and Odell Circle. This is the roundabout in front of the new Sea Breeze Regional Rec Center

Heading west on Odell Circle I noticed the gate was knocked down then I looked up and could see that a car or truck went in and out of the building inside the roundabout. Must of been going very fast. Car or truck left 2 large holes in the building one for entrance one for exit. I say car or truck because it is aq very large hole and I saw a large tire in the building.

Hoping to hear what happened.

Same Guy?
 

Might have been the same person that drove over the island and wiped out the gate, mechanism, island, and all earlier in the week at Hemingway entrance at Odell & Morse. :ohdear: I'm starting to think that the cart path may be safer. Then again there was the lady driving a Honda Accord that I almost collided with ....

We saw it too this morning on our way to church. They must have been going pretty fast because they hit the big palm tree in front of the building first and knocked it down before hitting the building. And they still had enough force to take out the cement supports on the building. Can't believe the building didn't fall down on the vehicle.

Sorry,I dropped my beer and lost control.:1rotfl:

No pics??

serious crash
 

My guess is this was a late night high speed crash. The gate exiting Duval was also completely sheared off. The vehicle must have been traveling at a very high rate of speed. There were no skid marks. The vehicle crossed the circle, hopped the curve, took out a one way sigh post and a lot of very large shrubs, then entered one side of the pump house, went COMPLETELY through the pump house and exited through the wall on the other side. I walked over to look inside the building and there are all kinds of car parts, hunks of bumpers, wheels, engine parts. It is an amazing sight. I asked the attendant at the guard house what happened. He said, "I don't know anything" :ohdear:

Good Grief!!!

You people are very good reporters. I can just imagine how it looks. Isn't that the only building inside of a traffic circle? it was the first one that came to mind. Please update us off campus that don't get the newspaper.

Just added. Gretchen remembers a building in the middle of the circle by Arnold Palmer. She said it looked like a pumping station.

GG... I'd post pix's if i wasn't so computer challenged?

Y'all be careful out there
 

Tuesday
Friends visiting from St Pete witnessed the aftermath of what appeared to be a head on collision on Morse Blvd and the Colony.

Wed.
Aforementioned accident that took out the Hemingway gate and was probably responsiible the minor blackout some us experienced.
I missed Bunco:cus:

Fri.
On the way to mah jong was delayed because of a major accident on the 466 and Rolling Acres Rd. Disabled vehicles on 3 of the 4 corners.

Sat./Sun.
Taking out of the pumping station on Odel & Buena Vista.

I'm starting to feel like we're all in a bad chase movie.

Just hope no one was seriously injured in last night's acciddent.

So many questions!
 

What is the law enforcement jurisdiction? Is there a police report? Did anyone take pictures? It's hard to imagine how the driver got away, especially with engine parts and a tire left behind.

Hey, are all you guys just playing a joke on those of us who aren't there? Did y'all get together at a bar last night and plan this tale. Did this really happened!?

Sun.
Someone sideswiped the guard house at the Rt 466 end of Southern Trace. Probably more damage to car than building.

People drive way to fast in TV....they must be in
 

they must be in a hurry to get home to take their nap or get their geritol....

We need many more cops....many more speed traps....many, many more tickets...let's have TV capable of writing more tickets than Waldo, FL on 301!!!!

Everybody slows down when they get there.
It worked there and would work here too and raise a lot of $$$ for the various counties.

Go git em Dano.

btk

I tried to upload a photo of the damage at the Bailey/Odell & Buena Vista roundabout without success. If you look at the scene...starting from the broken exit gate leading westward out of Duval...it appears that the vehicle went in a perfectly straight line through the gate and completely through one of the utility buildings (concrete block construction) located within the roundabout. I saw no skid marks...leading me to believe that the driver had a 'medical emergency' such as heart attack, stroke, seizure, diabetic issue or whatever.
Without regard to the physical damage, I hope the driver survived. Perhaps Monday's paper will have the whole story.

If it's in Monday's paper i missed it during a quick scan this AM.

I didn't see it in the paper either.
 

Oh boy. Wonder why there was no write up? At least none that I could read online.

Hope the paper isn't going to be harpooned again as "All The News You Need to Know.".

Was there anything in police report section?

Probably blinded by swirling snow LOL

I was in the news business for 45 year. Why wouldn't a community newspaper print a story that the public would clearly be curious about?

I also have another question. Having not seen this accident scene, I'm guessing it was one of the unmanned buildings, Yes? If it had been one of the manned buildings, would the gate keeper have been wiped out too?

I am sure the gatekeeper would have been harmed. Thank goodness I THINK it was in the middle of the circle.

Reporting on crashes or driving through buildings
 

does not enhance the image of TV "lifestyle" nor does it aid in the marketing and sale of properties!
Anybody who thinks the local paper is not controlled is naive.

btk

The gatekeeper surely would have been killed.

Building in Center of Roundabout Circle
 

As I understand it, the destroyed building was located in the center of the roundabout. Many roundabouts have structures within them. No gatekeeper would be present. I suspect the driver was just following the rule: the shortest distance between two point is ....

I was in news business too, and later marketing. I agree this hurts the credibility of both TV marketing and the Daily Sun.

Curious, I searched the archives of The Villages Daily Sun online. Using several keywords ("accident," "car," "cart," "auto" "wreck," "mishap") I found no previous articles on the subject. Has the Daily Sun printed articles in the past about car or golf cart accidents?

I drove by the site this AM. As previously stated, it is a concrete block building in the middle of the roundabout. I have no idea why it is there.

I expected to see the vehicle had passed through two opposing walls but it passed through two adjoining walls. In other words it went through at a 45 degree angle.

The Daily Sun has been pretty good about reporting accidents lately. I don't understand why this one was not reported. It was pretty spectacular. Maybe they will catch up tomorrow. It would be helpful to know the cause. We can all learn from others' mistakes.
It would be nice if saratogaman could upload those pics. There is a procedure for that but it is beyond my expertise.

When we went through our Lifestyle Preview Program in December, our Villages agent said there are security cameras located at some of the gates. I wonder now if this is infact true?
I also wonder if there are any cameras in the areas where this vehicle traveled - either before the crash or after fleeing the scene???
From the amount of property damage described, I question whether Law Enforcement sent out a Traffic Crash Investigator?

Oh, it' true allright. Earlier this year, a community watch guy stepped way out of line and got in my face over nothing at the Chatham gate. I called the community watch office, and they viewed the whole episode on their security camera. The guy was in deep sh##. Thank You security camera.

JLK

Bailey Trail Destruction
 

I cannot believe someone is shocked that the "Stepford" Gate Keepers would not know what happened at the gate or pump house.......after all when one is instructed to wave their hand...and repeat "Welcome to the Villages, have a nice day" a few hundred times a day.......it begins to look mechanical, sound mechanical, and appear mechanical. Yes?:1rotfl::1rotfl:

Mechanical Greeters
 

Disney Animatronics on their days off?
Remember the Twilight Zone with the Mannaquins that got a month each year to be real people??
Marsha? Marsha?

L&L

You bet--- 24 hrs of continuous Twilight Zone was on New Years day!

gate crasher
 

We too, were interested in what happened at the roundabout at the SeaBreeze / Duval gate. We were paired up today for golf with a gentleman who was just behind the incident. He said " guy in white small size pickup truck just appeared to be confused as to where his truck was in the path of the gate and went on through. Not speeding, not young, maybe just one of us who lost his way home......

Lift Stations
 

They are "lift stations". They lift the sewer water up to the next level, so gravity can continue to carry it to the waste plant. They have one huge electric pump in them with generator back up in case the electric goes out.

Skip

car accident
 

Not only did this story not make the newspaper, but the accident across the highway (441/27) did not. A car ran into a doctors office and took out the front wall. No one was hurt fortunately. This is local news and you'd think it would make the local newspaper.

car accident
 

Maybe it was being driven by one of those people with a cellphone glued permanently to their ear!

If the Daily Sun isn't going to report the news in the villages who is?Don't the residents of this community have a right to know :cus:

In the paper this morning, page c-5

Not bad, it happened on Saturday or Sunday and it makes the paper on Tuesday. I wonder if prodding from TOTV members may have lit the fuse.

New forum
 

We are! New forum on TOTV--->"Fresh off the Press". All of us TOTV'ers need to learn how to upload pix's and we can get hot stories that would otherwise be whitewashed and sterilized by The Daily Sun. In today's Sun there IS a tiny notice of the accident. Of course no photo and absolutely no details except "it was a man in a PU truck-minor injuries". Nothing about the suspected cause, any investigation, drugs/alcohol or even the man's age.

Do you think this is a report to the community on this serious accident?

Well!!

I think that another paper written by someone else would take hold, even if it started as a weekly, HOWEVER, how would you get the information about something like this? I would think the law enforcement would have been called?

We have a plethora of journalists on this forum. We are doing a pretty good job getting the news out. I can't download pictures either. We need another little instruction, administrators.

I just found this email address for the managing editor for the sun(Couldn't find the title of Editor)...if anyone wants to tell him how they feel about this....

matthew.fry@thevillagesmedia.com

OMG. This was not a terrorist attack. Just some dude ran into a building. Its been reported. It sounds from the posts that people want the kind of coveage the TV stations do....over and over rehasing of the details.....which accomplishes nothing.
If you knew the guy was drunk,etc., will you sleep better at night?
Now folks want another paper, wasn't that tried by the Ocala paper? Or a section on TOTV just for news, sounds like a rumor starter.
So much chatter over nothing!