Five Crashes in 16 Months: One Denver Family’s Breaking Point
In the past 16 months, at least three cars struck this Denver home. Images from Reddit and 9News.
For 27 years, Dave Stoll and his family have called the corner of Monaco Street Parkway and 17th Avenue home. But after five crashes in just the last 16 months—three of which sent vehicles directly into their house—the Denver family is wondering how much longer they can stay.
On May 24th, around 10 PM, the latest crash tore through their sense of safety once again.
“A car, three teenagers traveling well over 70 miles an hour, came straight down 17th, through the median, [the] intersection, crashed through protective boulders and launched up into the house and yard here,” Stoll told reporters.
This time, the Stolls were lucky: no one was injured, and they weren’t displaced. But they were still recovering from a previous crash in December 2023, which caused nearly $440,000 in damage. That incident launched a vehicle through the front wall of the house, wrecking multiple floors, and forcing the family out for months. Repairs were still underway when this latest incident occurred.
Stoll says the problem isn’t just speed—it’s poor design. “Certainly, during the daytime, [drivers] can see and make the maneuver,” he explained. “At night time, you can’t.”
Drivers heading east on 17th Avenue don’t realize the road bends left just before it hits Monaco Parkway. When the light turns green, they keep going straight—over the median, through an intersection, and sometimes straight into the Stolls’ living room.
Another image of a car that crashed into the Stoll household.
One Reddit commenter summed it up:
“Never been on this road, but it looks like a drag strip from Google Street View. No wonder people speed. It’s long, wide, and straight. Someone could easily hit 70+ mph if there isn’t traffic.”
The design misleads drivers. And the consequences are playing out not only on the Stolls’ property, but in the entire surrounding neighborhood. “If you look back, there are four lanes of traffic and pedestrians,” Stoll told reporters. “It’s only a matter of time—not if—before somebody is seriously injured or killed.”
One Denverite shared a grim introduction to the neighborhood: “My unfortunate introduction to all of this was the double fatality that happened in June 2021 in front of my eyes,” adding, “The problem with this area is the far spacing between traffic lights and zero traffic enforcement.”
Another nearby resident added:
“We live near this area and like to walk our dogs down 17th … and it is INSANE to even cross at 17th and Monaco. If people aren't parked blocking the crosswalk there, we’re counting how many cars are speeding through the intersection before we can ‘safely’ cross.”
Even city staff are frustrated.
“I drive by this house every day and have wondered why they keep that front window boarded up…. Guess I know why now! I’m a disgruntled DOTI employee and will email this article around internally today.”
A spokesperson for Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) told reporters there is no work currently scheduled at the intersection. They may assess whether more signage is needed.
Signage can help guide behavior. But it can’t overcome the cues embedded in the street itself. And on 17th Avenue, drivers aren’t creeping a few miles over the limit—they’re often going 20 or 30 miles faster than posted, responding to a street that visually and physically suggests higher speeds are appropriate.
After five crashes, a $440,000 rebuild, and literal boulders that couldn’t stop a car from launching into someone’s home, it’s hard for locals to feel reassured that signs alone will make a difference.
And while city leaders float plans for bike lanes along both Monaco Parkway and 17th Avenue, locals are worried. As one Denverite put it:
“What’s the plan to protect bike riders at that intersection if we can’t even protect houses?”
It’s a sobering question. The crashes that sent cars into the Stolls’ living room didn’t begin at the intersection. They began blocks away, where drivers felt comfortable picking up dangerous speed. If the goal is to prevent future harm, the response has to match the pattern: not just warning signs at the point of impact, but design interventions upstream—changes that consistently nudge drivers to slow down long before they arrive.
One Redditor shared a memory from their own hometown, where a family living at a crash-prone T-intersection built a wall and stashed a capsule inside filled with lawyers’ business cards for the next driver to plow through. A grim joke born from the certainty that another crash was always coming—the kind of coping mechanism that emerges when crashes aren’t a question of “if,” but “when.”
Across North America, neighborhoods are lined with streets that quietly invite danger. Long, straight stretches and wide lanes signal to drivers that it’s safe to go fast—even when homes, families, and playgrounds are just feet away.
When crashes happen, it’s tempting to blame teenagers, distractions, bad luck. But when the same house is hit five times in 16 months, it raises a deeper question: Why does the street make this kind of behavior so easy in the first place?
No one wants the outcome the Stoll’s have endured—not the families living in harm’s way, not the neighbors who witness the aftermath, and certainly not the public servants doing their best within systems they didn’t design. But the truth is, the systems we’ve inherited will keep producing these outcomes until we change the approach.
That’s where the Strong Towns Crash Analysis Studio comes in. It’s a simple, community-powered model that helps residents and local leaders come together and start asking better questions—questions that lead to real, tangible change on the ground.
Takeaways from communities that have adopted the Crash Analysis Studio model.
If you’re tired of waiting for the next crash—or if you’re a local official who knows something needs to shift—you don’t have to wait for tragedy to strike again. Start a Crash Analysis Studio in your town, or bring the model to your team. It’s a small step, but it’s a way out of the pattern. And that’s how we build safer streets.
