In seconds, a car smashed into a Ridgeland woman’s front yard. She caught it on video
Luckily, Jennifer Beckett and her kids weren’t home when it happened. But the watchful eye of her surveillance cameras still captured the SUV careening off the road before plowing into a parked car, right near the children’s trampoline.
“We’ve been here five years,” she said, “To be honest, I’ve been waiting for it.”
Captain Bill Road in Ridgeland, a narrow 1.2-mile stretch of pavement connecting U.S. 17 with Bees Creek Road in Jasper County, is a 35 mph zone that many drivers treat like a speedway, Beckett said.
On Friday afternoon around 3 p.m., her cameras caught the white car leave the roadway, stream past her front porch and slam to a stop, its back wheels leaving the ground in a plume of dust.
The driver was injured but was able to get out of the vehicle, according to Ridgeland Fire Chief Bradley Bonds, who added that the driver was taken to the hospital.
The crash totaled half of Beckett’s fence and her father-in-law’s car, fresh from the dealership. She was shaken.
Two weeks earlier, another car lost control, hit a telephone pole and uprooted a tree before stopping near her house.
“This has absolutely made it to where I don’t even want to check my mail,” Beckett said.
A spokesperson for the Ridgeland Police Department, which also responded to the Friday crash, didn’t immediately return a call from a reporter on Saturday afternoon.
Bonds, the fire chief, said he did not have updated information on the status of the driver. He heard safety concerns about the section of Captain Bill Road and said he would raise them with other Ridgeland officials.
After the latest wreck, Beckett moved her kids’ swing set and trampoline to the back yard.
“It’s absolutely scary,” she said. “And this, this tops it all for us.”
This story was originally published April 24, 2021 at 4:13 PM.
