A driver backed into a staircase, dislodged it and drove off with it on the roof of her car in Mississauga, Ont. in August 2025.Supplied
Last week, as we were having our morning coffee, my wife told me that on August 26 the police had pulled over a driver for driving down a major street with a steel staircase stuck to the roof of her Mazda, like the shell on a snail.
The 22-year-old driver from Woodbridge, Ont. had backed her car into the staircase (where it affixed to her car) and then drove approximately three kilometres along a major roadway called the Queensway with it sitting atop her Mazda. She was eventually stopped by police and charged with careless driving.
“You think you’ll write something about that?” she asked.
Of course I would. As a columnist, I’m always on the look out for material. Does someone have a live bunny rabbit on the dashboard? I’m on it. Placed an order while nude at a Tim Horton’s drive-thru? Ridden a horse through a Taco Bell drive-thru? Been there, done that.
So, the “Curious Incident of the Woodbridge Twenty-something Driver and the Staircase Car” certainly seemed like a story ripe for ridicule. It called back to the “Bluth Stair Car” featured on one of my favorite sitcoms, Arrested Development. Perhaps Staircase Lady was hoping for some hop-ons?
The story posed a few important questions:
- How, why and who backs into a staircase?
- Having backed into a staircase and dislodged it to the roof of their car, what sort of person mistakes a staircase for a giant ski rack?
- Having mistaken a staircase for a giant ski rack, what sort of person decides to drive away with it along a six-lane roadway on the roof of their car?
- Having driven away with it on their roof, what sort of person decides to keep driving away with it?
The answer? Nobody knows.
“We’re not really sure what the heck was going on there,” Peel Regional Police Constable Tyler Bell-Morena posted on social media. The police are investigating.
As I sat down to write this column, while visions of staircase cars danced in my head, it occurred that the funniest thing about driving a car three kilometres with a staircase on the roof is how utterly unremarkable it is. It’s strange, sure but the egregiousness of the driving, the sheer badness of it all, was so very, very usual.
Driving around in an automobile with a staircase for a hat is weird but not surprising, not in a world where a man is arrested for driving impaired with four kids in his car or a driver crashes her car into a drive test centre and these events do not make the “front page.” Given how truly awful drivers are, it is not surprising that one backed her car into the staircase and drove off with it sitting atop her vehicle, like the shell on a snail. What’s surprising is that there are not fleets of staircase-topped vehicles swarming around our towns and cities.
It must be noted that stairs are a bit of a bête noire when it comes to automobiles. In June, an 80-year-old Italian became notorious when he got stuck driving his Mercedes-Benz down Rome’s famous Spanish Steps. He explained that he was on his way to work. He tested negative for alcohol. Last week at Vancouver International Airport, a driver got stuck on a pedestrian staircase. CTV News reported “the driver was the lone occupant of the vehicle and had ‘accidentally exited the parkade via the pedestrian stairs.’” There was no mention whether this was an homage to the Vancouver SUV owner who drove a pedestrian staircase at the Wall Centre in 2019. Likewise, the car in Mississauga which crashed down a staircase after a hit and run collision in 2024.
What is the moral of the Aesop’s latest fable - “The Staircase and the Woman From Woodbridge.” When someone suggests you, “Take the stairs,” don’t take them literally, especially if you’re driving a Mazda 3.