Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about a woman who driving her car into the McAllen Convention Center pond over the weekend. All of our local news outlets have covered this groundbreaking story, but, we at the Bench Wire still have some questions for her.
First question: you good?
Ok, clearly she’s fine since it’s been reported that she escaped with only minor injuries.
I mean, was this a full on Michael Scott situation?
Was she passed out behind the wheel, and if so, how the hell does someone go from the road into a pond that’s approximately 100 ft. over?
Let’s dig further:
Based on photographs of the vehicle provided by the Mission Fire Department, the black Infiniti QX60 is facing West, as seen here.
A photo taken that same night also indicates that the vehicle was driving westbound when it entered the pond.
Pairing this information with a bird’s eye view of the convention center, clearly, she would have needed to have entered from the East half of the round-about, either coming in from Houston Ave. or the East side parking lot, near the McAllen Performing Arts Center.
Assuming she didn’t WILLINGLY drive her $49,000 car into the pond, if she, hypothetically, came in driving from Houston Ave., there are several trees, signs, and poles that could have potentially prevented a distracted, confused, or incapacitated driver from entering the pond, given the size of the vehicle.
Coming in through the East side parking lot near the performing arts center, there are virtually no physical barriers from the street to the pond other than the far-spaced benches near the water.
A third possible scenario would be that while driving alongside the East half of the roundabout, the car simply turned into the pond.
This isn’t the first time the McAllen Convention Center’s road design has been under fire. Back in 2016, a drunk motorist struck a pair of 16-year old teenagers, one of whom died, when his vehicle went over the curb and into the park. Those involved in the design of the roundabout were later sued for failing to prevent the car from striking the pair of teens with “required landscaping” such as concrete bollards.
Some eight years later, here we are with a strikingly similar scenario, only, thankfully, there was nobody in the park.
At the time of this writing, no other information has been released from McAllen PD or Texas DPS regarding the incident.
