Some stolen cars are taken to be sold or stripped. Others are taken to be driven, fast and publicly, until something stops them. In March, a black Lamborghini Urus fell into the second group. What stopped it was a front fence in Glen Waverley.
What police reported
According to Victoria Police and local reports:
- At about 1.15am on Thursday 12 March, police allege a group broke into a property in Maribyrnong and took a black 2020 Lamborghini Urus.
- The car was then driven around Melbourne for much of the day. Police said they tracked it from the air rather than chase it on the ground, citing public safety.
- At about 4.35pm, after driving through a shopping centre car park in Glen Waverley, the driver lost control and crashed into the front fence of a home on Myers Avenue. No one was injured.
- A 16-year-old was arrested at the scene. Other occupants ran. In the following week, police said a 13-year-old girl and a second 16-year-old had been arrested and charged with offences including aggravated burglary and theft of a motor vehicle.
Those charges are allegations and have not been tested in court.
Two victims, one of them random
Stories like this tend to focus on the car and the owner it was taken from. There was a second household involved, though: the people in Glen Waverley whose fence happened to be where the drive ended. They had no connection to the theft, and their only bad luck was where they live.
That's the nature of stolen-car crashes. Cars driven dangerously, often by inexperienced drivers, run wide on bends, miss turns at T-intersections and leave the road where the road changes direction. Whatever is just beyond the kerb at those points takes the hit. Often it's a fence, a front garden, a parked car or a house.
A front fence is not a barrier
Most Melbourne front fences are built for privacy and looks: timber pickets, rendered brick, steel slats on light posts. They mark the boundary. They aren't designed to stop a car, and most will be pushed over or straight through by a vehicle going at any real speed.
In this case the fence seems to have done enough, and no one was hurt. But it's worth asking what's behind your own front fence. A garden bed is one thing. A front bedroom, a children's play area or a spot where people sit outside is another.
Which homes are more exposed
We haven't seen the Myers Avenue property and aren't commenting on its layout. Generally, though, the homes that see more run-off crashes share a few features:
- Homes facing the stem of a T-intersection, where a driver who fails to turn keeps going straight.
- Homes on the outside of a bend, where a car carrying too much speed runs wide.
- Homes on arterial roads with high traffic volumes and speeds, which we look at in our piece on an SUV that went through a bedroom wall on Bell Street.
- Homes near car park exits, where drivers accelerate back onto the road.
What actually stops a car at the boundary
If a home is in one of those spots, a few things make a real difference:
- Fixed steel bollards just inside the boundary, in the line a run-off car would take. They don't need to run the full width of the block. They need to cover the exposed approach, spaced closely enough that a car can't pass between them.
- A removable bollard at the driveway, if the driveway itself is the open path from the road to the house.
- Substantial, anchored landscaping, such as large rocks set into the ground. These can help, but loose planters and sleepers generally just get pushed along.
Bollards on your own land are generally your decision. Anything on the nature strip or footpath is council land and needs council involvement. If your house sits at a spot where cars regularly leave the road, it's also worth telling your council. Road treatments like line marking, signs and traffic calming are their responsibility, and repeated reports help build a case.
The keys started it
One last point. Police allege this car was taken in a break-in, which fits a pattern seen across Melbourne this year: offenders entering homes for car keys rather than defeating the car itself. We've written about that pattern and three cases from 2026. The car that ended up in someone's fence started its day at someone else's home.