Where the Action is

COEUR d'ALENE - Employees say it's a daily occurrence at Action Printers.

The cozy office will be hushed, staff hunched dutifully over desks, the printing press in the next room thrumming with industrial strength.

And then just outside the windows, car horns will blare. Brakes will shriek.

Sometimes it's a car running the light by the office, on the southeast corner of Third Street and Harrison Avenue. Sometimes a car is bungling a turn at the intersection, or driving the wrong direction on the one-way Third Street.

And occasionally, a car slams into the building.

"We get a little gun shy when we hear brakes on this corner," said Jodi Orser, who manages the commercial printing company with her husband, Stan.

Car accidents are a fact of life at Action Printers, the 5,000-square-foot building facing the intersection of unfortunate design.

"We'll hear horns throughout the day, or brakes," said Customer Service Rep Angie Atkinson, adding that accidents happen about once a month. "It seems like there's always something going on out here."

But that's not the main cause of stress.

Since the business moved into the building in the early '80s, two vehicles have crashed into the office and destroyed windows and support beams.

Another car once struck a nearby fire hydrant that flooded the building.

This past weekend was a lucky miss, with a vehicle only ramming a street pole on the building's perimeter.

"It's something we have to deal with," Jodi said of the company's risky location. "Everybody pitches in, does what they have to do. We work through these issues."

The office's southwest wall is still under repair from early December, when a Jeep Cherokee careened through a large window and completed its unscheduled off-roading on a desk and computer.

The window was boarded up on Wednesday. Much of the damage had been taken care of, Jodi said, like replacing a support beam that the SUV took out.

It hasn't really disrupted business, said Jodi, whose in-laws Del and Bonnie own the business.

The December crash happened at night, when no one was in the office. The company's production of printed materials wasn't affected. Its insurance has been on top of the repairs.

"It's great publicity, but our insurance doesn't appreciate the accidents," Jodi said, noting that there isn't a cost estimate yet on the repairs.

But the issue itself is a little frightening, staff concedes.

Bonnie and Atkinson both usually sit by the window that the Jeep plunged through.

A car six years ago drove into the same corner -no one working there at the time - and destroyed another support beam and window.

"I'm just thankful we were all at home," Atkinson said of the December crash. "I probably would've had radiator fluid and glass in the back of my head. And Bonnie, she sits over there, she definitely would've been hospitalized, if not dead."

It was a clarion sign that something needs to be done, Jodi said.

The business is in the process of scheduling a meeting with the city of Coeur d'Alene, Jodi said.

There is hope the city could improve the intersection, she said. She's hoping for installation of a roundabout, maybe, or some kind of protective infrastructure.

In the meantime, Bonnie and Angie are working in a different corner of the office.

"They won't move back over until a decision or something has been done about that corner," said Jodi, who like husband Stan sits farther back in the lobby.

The intersection is tricky. Harrison is a narrow road. The one-way Third Street confuses drivers.

Jodi believes the intersection light is too low. Drivers heading eastbound on Harrison are more likely to see the light on Fourth Street a block down, she contended, and breeze past the Third Street light.

"There's a blind spot on that corner, so anybody going south on Third ends up T-boning (the driver on Harrison)," she said.

None of the company's 10 employees have ever been injured from cars striking the office.

City Council member Steve Adams said he agrees the intersection should be addressed.

"I was by there the other day. I thought, 'That's always the goofiest intersection,'" Adams said. "I thought, 'I wonder if there's something we should do to straighten this thing out.'"

But what that fix might look like, he couldn't guess.

"That's where my thoughts fall short," he said. "If an engineer could come up with an idea to straighten that out, I'd definitely be in favor of trying to find some funds to do it."

Other businesses that have been on the receiving end of car crashes include Peterson Family Foods on Sherman Avenue, and Taj Grocery Store on 15th Street.

Staff at both stores declined to offer advice on the matter.

Atkinson lauded that despite the occasional interruptions, Action Printers has still always churned out product quickly.

"We're definitely not a drive through yet, though," she said with a laugh.

Well, not the kind that they would like, anyway.