Car stuck in sign, lane closed following crash

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, May 5, 2026

A suspected impaired driver’s late-night drive came to an abrupt end at an Oak Harbor gas station Saturday.

A 30-year-old man was driving a 2025 Toyota Camry south on Midway Boulevard, missed the turn at the intersection with Southeast Eighth Avenue and struck the 25-foot poles holding up signs at Hilltop Auto Service, according to Oak Harbor Police Chief Tony Slowik. Toyota Telematics called the dispatch center to reported the collision from the car’s sensors at about 3:30 a.m.

Slowik said it was lucky that the car didn’t strike the nearby box that controls the traffic lights.

The driver was not injured, and officers arrested him on suspicion of DUI and reckless driving.

Yet the problem wasn’t over. The car remained jammed into the sign until Monday morning, causing the city to close off a lane of the road until then.

Phil Collier, owner of Hilltop Auto, said the police called his home early in the morning and his wife initially hung up on the officer, thinking it was a spam caller.

“It was kind of comical,” he said, explaining that he woke up afterward and got the bad news.

Collier said a police officer and a public works employee wanted to call a tow truck to pull out the car as it was jammed into the support of the sign. But he refused, feeling that simply pulling the car out would cause the giant poles to fall and possibly strike nearby facilities. He called Meyer Sign, which had put up the sign about 30 years ago, to bring a boom truck and another truck to take down the sign safely on Monday.

The cost of taking down and replacing the sign may be as much as $40,000, he said.

Collier, ever opinionated, said he felt it was “complete overkill” for the city to close off part of the road. He said the city blocked the entrance of his business with traffic cones, but he simply moved them.

Collier said he has video of the crash, which showed the car speeding through the intersection and striking the pole. Yet he feels that the city should do more to make the tricky intersection safer, like placing a sign to let southbound drivers know about the curve at the intersection.