KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Brian Riley heard some racket Wednesday night outside of his home, but at first he didn’t think much of it.
“I could hear tires for like 10, 15 minutes, just tires squealing, like someone was stuck in the snow,” Riley told WDAF. “I didn’t think much about it.”
After his dogs began barking loudly, Riley decided to check one of his home security cameras for a peek outside. And he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“I think everybody was shocked to see it,” Riley said. “Like, ‘Holy cow! What is happening right now?’”
A U.S. Postal Service delivery truck exploded into a ball of flames down the street from Riley’s home in a subdivision off N.E. Barry Road.
Riley and other neighbors watched helplessly as the fully engulfed truck then rolled backward down North Marston Avenue before coming to a stop on a neighbor’s front yard.
“This guy’s extremely lucky that nobody got hurt, including himself,” Riley said. “But he easily could’ve taken out a couple vehicles and a couple houses.”
Riley suspects the driver blew a tire after gunning the engine, in a nearly futile attempt to crest an icy incline on the road.
“There was a point where, for almost 10 minutes straight, he did not let up on the gas,” Riley said. “He was pushing it beyond insanity, and you could just tell the way he was going that he was getting more and more mad the whole time.”
A spokesperson for the postal service said the driver wasn’t injured, and the fire is under investigation.
Riley tells WDAF that neighbors have filed complaints with this mail carrier in the past. It looked like one of those scenes out of ‘Back to the Future,’ where you’ve just got the fire trails from the vehicle. But I definitely don’t think he got up to 88 miles per hour.”
“I don’t think this surprised any of us at all that this even happened,” Riley said. “That’s the one and only time I’ve ever actually seen our mailman get out of his vehicle.”
Grateful no one was hurt, Riley was able to keep a sense of humor about a very strange day in his neighborhood.
“It looked like one of those scenes out of ‘Back to the Future,’ where you’ve just got the fire trails from the vehicle. But I definitely don’t think he got up to 88 miles per hour.”