What is it with cars and estate agency windows? Every few months a story of vehicles crashing into estate agency branches motor through our inbox.

There are more than 600,000 results if you search the phrase “estate agent car crash” in Google News.

In many cases there have been lucky escapes.

In July Lucy Roberts, co-director of Worcester agents Roberts and Egan, was lucky enough to be on her lunch break when a driver reversed into a window next to her desk, causing £4,000 of damage.

Roberts told the Worcester News: “I had popped home at lunchtime. It could have been very damaging, we are very lucky. I was scared when I saw it.

“Local shopkeepers came together and rang us to make sure we were okay and the glaziers were here within minutes to make it safe.”

It seems like it is not just lunch breaks that need to be timed correctly.

Last December negotiator Chris Peirce, who normally works at a desk in the window of Kings estate agents in Sevenoaks, Kent, popped to the loo seconds before a 4×4 vehicle crashed its whole length into the office.

He at least attracted a Sun headline of ‘I cheated car death by getting up to go to the toilet.”

The epidemic seems to come as threat from any type of vehicle. From a Ford Fiesta that smashed through the window of Dawsons Estate Agents in Swansea, to a Nissan Micra that a suspected drunk driver drove right into the window of Roger Dean earlier this year causing £15,000 of damage.

In April a branch of Northwood in Allerton Road, Liverpool, fell victim to a crash after a Mercedes lost control and also caused damage to a recently opened barber shop.

Replacing a shop window can costs three-figure sums and that doesn’t begin to include replacing any office equipment that gets destroyed and the potential loss of business.

The main thing is that staff, visitors and passers-by are safe, of course.

But perhaps it’s time to add a clause in the highway code or even making avoiding estate agent branches part of the practical tests the same way learner drivers have to master a three-point turn?