A Pāpāmoa laundromat customer had a lucky escape when a car crashed through the shopfront and stopped just metres away.

Lemon Laundromat owner Ricki Singh said the vehicle smashed through bollards, damaging the entrance and narrowly missing the patron after becoming lodged in the doorway.

Singh said the person was sitting “not too far off” when the crash happened about 1.30pm today.

An elderly woman had accidentally “stepped on the gas and didn’t take her foot off”, Singh said.

He believed the woman was in her late 80s and was not seriously injured. She was “a bit shaken up”.

Singh was standing outside another business he owns a few doors down on Gravatt Rd in the Fashion Island Shopping Centre.

He said he heard the tyres before seeing the car slam into the laundromat.

He said the bollards had “a chance” to slow the vehicle down, but “even after that” it continued forward and became lodged in the doorway.

Singh said glaziers were on their way to remove the damaged frame, clean up the broken glass and board up the front of the building while permanent repairs were arranged.

He hoped his 24-hour laundromat would be able to reopen later today when it was safe to do so.

Singh said there had been a series of cars crashing into shops at the centre.

Three people were injured when a car crashed into the Under Armour store in August.

Singh said the store was still boarded up and its damaged frames had yet to be repaired.

He said many of the incidents involved elderly drivers parking in mobility parks directly outside the shops.

A car has reportedly driven into the window of a laundromat in Papamoa.

Police said a crash where a car hit a shop window was reported to them about 1.30pm.

They said the driver of the car was being assessed by an ambulance crew and no other injuries had been reported.

Hato Hone St John said one ambulance responded.

They said the crew assessed one patient in a minor condition at the scene.

Annabel Reid is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and the Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke’s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.