Driver unhurt in Modesto crash that perches car atop pipes

A driver ended up with the rear of her car about 4 feet off the ground, sitting atop metal bars that protected water pipes, after she lost control on rain-slickened Scenic Drive on Thursday morning.

The driver was eastbound on Scenic just east of Bodem Street shortly after 7 a.m. when she took the bend there too fast, said Modesto police Officer Troy Cross. She lost control and spun, hitting the curb rear-first, Cross said. The curb launched her Nissan Sentra onto concrete safety barriers in front of the Stanislaus County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services building at 800 Scenic Drive.

“She rode it like a skateboard ramp,” Cross said, explaining that the undercarriage of her car skidded along the top of the row of barriers like a skateboarder would grind on a rail.

From the barriers, the car hit a row of metal poles in front of a water backflow prevention assembly. One of the protective poles was knocked loose from its concrete foundation, but damage to the backflow was minimal – just a slightly bent valve. Modesto Water Division workers shut off the water as a precaution, but there was no rupture as a tow truck crane lifted the car from the pipes just after 8 a.m.

The driver was alone in her car and uninjured in the crash. Police helped her down from her elevated position.

Traffic on Scenic was not blocked but was slowed by the tow truck, police vehicles and water workers being in the street.

The concrete dividers struck by the driver were put in place sometime in or around December, said Scott Lines, assistant director of Behavioral Health and Recovery Services. “We’ve had probably over 30 accidents over the past year” in front of the building, he said. “It only happens when it rains.

“... We used to have big terra cotta pots out here, but they got destroyed every time there was a spinout.”

This story was originally published April 14, 2016 at 10:06 AM with the headline "Driver unhurt in Modesto crash that perches car atop pipes."