Florida Rolls-Royce Driver Somehow Smashes Into A $3 Million Dollar Sculpture In Someone’s Backyard

Most of the time, if you hit something that isn’t a building while driving a Rolls-Royce, you don’t damage something worth more than the car itself. Unfortunately, the Palm Beach Daily News reports that a rare exception recently happened in Palm Beach, Fla. when a 66-year-old driver ploughed her Rolls-Royce through a multi-million-dollar sculpture in someone’s backyard. This is so far outside my tax bracket that I just need to take a step back and examine the situation. Unfortunately, all the photos floating around are very low-res, so we’ll need to zoom in instead.

For a start, the Rolls-Royce involved in this very expensive shunt isn’t the ultra-rare Phantom Drophead Coupe, but instead a more common Dawn. Despite not being the hi-po Black Badge version, 563 horsepower and 605 lb.-ft. of torque still make it quick, and the exclusivity of the Rolls-Royce badge makes it still expensive. Figure a price tag north of $150,000 even for higher-mileage examples. Granted, higher-mileage for a Rolls-Royce isn’t nearly the same as higher-mileage for most cars, but that’s the world of high-end cars for you.

It’s already impressive that this driver managed to send her Dawn through a backyard, but she also managed to take out a very expensive sculpture before getting wedged on the seawall. The Palm Beach Daily News reports that the homeowner estimated the cost of the sculpture at $3,000,000, although it’s hard to put a finger on value due to the strange world of art. The sculpture itself was made of coral, which somehow seems both excessive and ordinary. I guess Velveeta cheese just doesn’t hold up to the elements like coral does.

While it’s easy to look at this as simply a case of rich person problems, there might be an actual big problem underneath the surface of this story. As reported by the Palm Beach Daily News, “Officers said the woman told them she had no recollection of the hours leading up to the crash.” Uh, that’s not good. I’m not a doctor, but something seems off if a person doesn’t remember a chunk of their waking hours. What’s more, details around the crash are a bit odd. According to the paper, the driver came up the driveway, hit a curb, stopped, and then proceeded to hit the sculpture. Is it possible the driver had some sort of medical event? Perhaps.

While nobody was injured in this incident, it brings up some important questions about driving. Namely, what would you do if another driver is motoring erratically or just seems out of it? Is there a duty to call it in, or are driving standards so low that something like that just seems normal? As necessary as driving is in most of North America due to woeful public transit infrastructure, it’s also a privilege that can be revoked if public safety is in question. Perhaps, at the end of the day, we just can’t trust everyone else on the road without huge, systemic changes. As ever, drive defensively. Even the best drivers in the world still have to look out for everyone else.

(Photo credits: Palm Beach Police, Rolls-Royce)

Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.

• Watch Thieves In A Stolen Audi Brazenly Drive Through A Toronto-Area Shopping Mall

• Pro Tip: Don’t Try To Hide A Stolen Land Rover In A Canal

• The Oldest Toilet In Japan Was Crashed Into By A Really Cool Car You Should Know About

• A Lawyer Explains How Someone Can Sue An Insurance Company For Catching An STI In A Car

• Newly Released Video Of Thanksgiving Day Tesla Full Self-Driving Crash Demonstrates The Fundamental Problem Of Semi-Automated Driving Systems

Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.