Pedestrian Accident

Back to School Safety II – San Francisco Child Injury Attorney on School Zone Safety

August 22, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

Earlier this week, we focused on school bus safety. However, the safety of students is too important to confine to one blog entry. We all know that drivers should pay extra attention and slow down when passing through school zones. Still, far too often, drivers choose shaving a few moments off their travel time over protecting our school children and teens. When school zone injuries or fatalities stem from a driver’s failure to value school zone safety, our San Francisco school injury attorney is ready to help.

SFPD Increases Safety Patrols As Students Return to School

This week, SF Weekly reported that the SFPD is stepping up efforts to target drivers who might endanger students as they return to school. Police are watching for speeders, drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians, and those who simply aren’t focused on the path before them. Notably, while 42% of San Francisco elementary students live within walking distance of their school, only a quarter actually walk because of safety worries.

Pedestrian Injury in S.F.’s Sunset District Fits Pattern of Similar Incidents

May 9, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

Notwithstanding San Francisco’s recent efforts to curb the number of incidents in which pedestrians have sustained injuries in collisions with motor vehicles, the city by the bay remains a perilous place for pedestrians. And San Francisco pedestrian accident attorney Gregory J. Brod found Thursday’s latest example of another pedestrian suffering injuries while crossing the street particularly troubling because it happened on a roadway that has already seen two other high-profile injuries that made the news this year.

A 20-year-old woman was crossing the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Yorba Street in the city’s Sunset district when, according to KTVU News, she was struck by a Honda CRV. The woman entered the crosswalk after pushing a button to activate several flashing beacons to alert motorists to stop, which several did, but the driver of the Honda CRV did not stop, noticed the woman too late and skidded into her. The impact between the car and the woman sent the latter spinning to the pavement, and she was transported to the hospital with moderate injuries.

One other pedestrian suffered more serious injuries and another one died at the same intersection, which has six lanes and a center island, earlier this year. In February, a 77-year-old man was struck and killed, and in that same month a teenage boy was hit and sustained head injuries. As in the case of Thursday’s incident, the man who was killed and the teenage boy had pushed a button that triggered the flashing beacon alert system prior to crossing the street.

The roadway conditions at Sunset Boulevard and Yorba Street – six lanes and no signal for several blocks that allow traffic to pick up speed – unfortunately, are conducive to pedestrian-motorist collisions, and dozens of people have been hit on Sunset Boulevard over the years. Indeed, the perilous conditions at the intersection are an example of why pedestrian-motorist collisions have been concentrated in a limited number of particularly dangerous intersections in San Francisco.
There are several troubling statistics that point to a definite profile for pedestrian-motorist collisions in San Francisco, including the following that were compiled by KQED:

Every year in San Francisco at least 800 people are injured in collisions with motor vehicles, and 100 are severely injured or killed;
Six percent of the streets in San Francisco account for 60 percent of all severe and fatal pedestrian injuries;
Fifty percent of all pedestrian fatalities involved a motorist who was driving at 40 mph or faster, whereas only 10 percent of fatalities involved a motorist who was driving at 25 mph or slower;
Sixty-four percent of drivers in pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions are found at fault, with 41 percent of that total failing to yield to the pedestrian;
Twenty-eight percent of all pedestrian injuries in a collision with a motor vehicle were preceded by the latter making a left turn; and
Seniors suffer fatal injuries at a rate five times greater than younger adults.

The city had been planning to install a stop light at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Yorba Street in 2016. However, in the wake of the fatality in February, those plans have been moved up by one year.
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As Collisions with Cars Prove Relentless, Pedestrians Suffer Deadly Week

April 10, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

Since Sunday, it has been a deadly week in the Bay Area for pedestrians who have been hit by motor vehicles, with fatalities in San Francisco, San Jose, Alameda and Sebastopol, and life-threatening injuries for a boy in San Francisco. The rash of deaths and severe injuries has several community advocates as well as San Francisco pedestrian accident attorney Gregory J. Brod hoping that the spate of bad news is not a trend that is sustained through the rest of the year and calling for measures to improve pedestrian safety.

Late Sunday night, a man was struck and killed on Van Ness and and Golden Gate avenues near City Hall in San Francisco. The death was the seventh recorded in San Francisco in 2014, in spite of the fact that the San Francisco Police Department has stepped up its issuing of traffic citations through the first three months of this year in an attempt to curb the uptick in pedestrian deaths in the city.

Wednesday was a particularly deadly day for pedestrians in the Bay Area, with one fatality in San Jose, another in Alameda and yet another in Sebastopol.

In San Jose on Wednesday, a man died after being struck on the East Capitol Expressway in an incident that the San Jose Police Department is investigating as a hit-and-run incident. According to KTVU News, Officers arrived on the scene to find the victim mortally wounded after the suspect vehicle struck him and fled the scene.

In Alameda on Wednesday, a woman died on Otis Drive in front of the South Shore Shopping Center while crossing the street after being stuck by a minivan. According to KTVU News, the woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

In Sebastopol on Wednesday, a man taking a stroll on Healdsburg Avenue was struck while in a crosswalk by an automobile. According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, the man died in the impact.

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And on Thursday in San Francisco’s Richmond district, a 3-year-old boy who was either walking or riding his bicycle in a crosswalk at Fulton Street just outside Golden Gate Park was struck by a light truck, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The boy, who was run over by the light truck and dragged several feet, was taken to San Francisco General Hospital with life-threatening injuries.

2013 was a particularly deadly year for pedestrians in the Bay Area. In the region’s three largest cities, San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland, there were a total of 50 pedestrian deaths, including 26 in San Jose, 17 in San Francisco and seven in Oakland. Unfortunately, those figures dovetail with a trend that has been recorded nationwide: pedestrians have been one of the few groups of people using roadways who experienced an increase in fatalities in the United States in 2011 to 4,432, according to the most recent statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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S.F.’s Newly Announced Safety Measures Are Encouraging, but Pedestrians Still at Risk on City Streets

March 7, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

The mayor and police chief of San Francisco unveiled on Thursday a program to improve pedestrian safety on the streets of the city by the bay, and the campaign could not come soon enough for those, including San Francisco pedestrian accident attorney Gregory J. Brod, who have been alarmed by the significant number of pedestrian fatalities and injuries there.

According to local CBS station KPIX 5, Mayor Ed Lee has pledged that the city would spend $17 million into redesigning intersections and streets, with the anticipation that the modification would lead to greater pedestrian safety. There have been four pedestrian deaths this year, 21 in all of 2013, and 120 over the last seven years in San Francisco. During that same seven-year period, there have been more than 5,600 collisions involving a pedestrian, most of them with a motor vehicle.

The gravity of the situation was not lost on Police Chief Greg Suhr, who said that the San Francisco Police Department would be cracking down on traffic violators, both drivers and pedestrians, by issuing citations at the five most dangerous intersections in each police district. And the police chief made an observation that drove home the seriousness of the problem.

“Year to date, we’ve had more people killed on the streets of San Francisco in vehicle collisions than we have by homicide,” Suhr said. “It’s a problem.”

A measure of how dangerous some intersections can be has been on grim display this year at Sunset Boulevard and Yorba Street, where on Feb. 3 a man crossing the street was killed after being struck by a car and where, just two weeks later, a teenager was seriously injured while crossing at the same intersection after being hit by an automobile. Most recently, a pedestrian was hit and seriously injured Thursday when a taxi struck him while he was attempting to cross Van Ness Avenue, another notoriously dangerous stretch of road in San Francisco.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s WalkFirst program has compiled statistics and analyzed more than 2,000 crashes over a five-year period in the city. The program found that during that timeframe, there have been more than 100 fatal or severe injury accidents each year, with another 800 injury-producing collisions, each year in San Francisco. The study determined that just 6 percent of the city’s streets accounted for 60 percent of the severe and fatal injuries.

In an ominous prediction, an official with the Municipal Transportation Agency’s Livable Streets program said that the week after daylight-saving time should be more perilous for pedestrians because drivers tend to be a bit sleepy and due to the darker conditions.
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S.F.’s Van Ness Avenue’s Reputation for Peril Worsens as Another Pedestrian is Struck, Killed by Motor Vehicle

February 13, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

When statistics suggest the evidence of a pattern, it is usually noteworthy enough for those interested in the subject matter to pay attention. But when the pattern involves a really life-and-death matter such as pedestrian safety, action as much as attention is required. And that, San Francisco pedestrian accident attorney Gregory J. Brod would point out, is what is called for in the city by the bay in the wake of yet another pedestrian death on Van Ness Avenue.

According to KTVU News, a 35-year-old man lost his life at about 12:55 a.m. Wednesday near Van Ness and Pacific avenues when a motorist slammed into the man, abandoned his vehicle and then walked away from the scene. The police pronounced the pedestrian who was struck by the automobile dead at the scene and officers took the motorist whose car had hit him into custody. The motorist was booked into jail on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter, leaving the scene of an accident and on a misdemeanor warrant.

It is bad enough that the man who died Wednesday represented San Francisco’s fourth pedestrian fatality of 2014 – there were 21 pedestrian fatalities in the city in 2013, the most since 2007 – but perhaps just as troublesome is the fact that three of those four deaths occurred on Van Ness Avenue. In addition, there have been 84 accidents involving pedestrians on that street between 2008 and 2013. A major six-lane thoroughfare, Van Ness Avenue’s reputation as a dangerous street to cross is so notorious that some have dubbed it “Van Mess Avenue.”

While Van Ness Avenue is not the only dangerous street for pedestrians to cross in San Francisco – 19th Avenue, among others, has also earned a reputation as a deadly street to navigate – it certainly has been getting more than its share of bad press lately. And, since the street passes right by City Hall as well as some of the city’s cultural landmarks, it stands to reason that at least a few city officials have noticed the carnage.

However, it seems as though official awareness of the tragic circumstances on Van Ness Avenue has not necessarily translated into a substantive solution to the problem, or at least a solution that is in the works. Some yet-to-be-adopted plans that have been floated include ladder-style painting of crosswalks that are more visible to motorists.

“The design process takes too long,” said San Francisco Supervisor Scott Weiner, commenting on the steps needed to make Van Ness Avenue and other streets safer for pedestrians. “The public process takes too long. Everything takes too long. And it’s just completely broken.”

Another plan that has been on the city’s drawing board since last September is to institute a rapid transit bus line down the center of Van Ness Avenue. That measure, traffic experts have said, would lessen congestion and make it easier for pedestrians to cross the street. Unfortunately, the express bus corridor is not slated to be completed for another four years.
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The (Dangerous) Streets of San Francisco and the Role of the City in Pedestrian and Cyclist Injuries

February 10, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

The problem of pedestrian and cyclist accidents in San Francisco is a topic all-too-familiar to readers of this blog. As a San Francisco personal injury law firm, our team is always focused on the “Why?” This question is part of our client representation, but it is also part of our commitment to prevention. We want to make the fabled Streets of San Francisco safer for all travelers; a key piece of this effort is identifying common factors in previous accidents. We are particularly concerned when this examination leads to the conclusion that the city and dangerous roads may be partly to blame.

Statistics Point to High-Injury Corridors that See a Disproportionate Share of Serious Accidents

As noted in a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, the city has spent time and directed funds toward the problem of pedestrian and cyclist accidents, but the threat continues and many suggest a failure to follow through with planed proposals is a key part of the problem. The spike in pedestrian deaths in late 2013 has continued into 2014, including the death of a pedestrian in the Parkside neighborhood last week. While driver behavior is obviously a major cause of dangerous accidents, statistic reveal that a mere 6 percent of San Francisco streets see a whopping 60 percent of auto collisions in which a pedestrian is killed or seriously hurt. Likewise, 5.2% of the city’s street miles can be deemed “high-injury corridors” since they see more than half of pedestrian injuries and deaths.

Hit-and-Run in Hercules All the More Shocking Due to Film Footage

January 24, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

Collisions between motor vehicles and pedestrians are often unnerving enough on their own, but when the pedestrian is injured by a hit-and-run motorist, the incident suddenly becomes much more disturbing – and criminal – in nature. San Francisco pedestrian accident attorney Gregory J. Brod would point out that, unfortunately for the victim, a hit-and-run motorist is literally driving off with some key evidence. In a world that is increasingly filmed, though, sometimes the motorist’s actions are caught on camera.

That, apparently, is what happened in Hercules early on the morning of Jan. 17, when, according to KTVU News, a surveillance video from a passing bus caught a sport utility vehicle strike a man who was trying to complete his passage in a crosswalk. But what the SUV’s motorist did after his vehicle collided with the 70-year-old victim was truly shocking.

“He then stopped his vehicle, got out, and walked over to the victim,” said Hercules Police Department spokeswoman Connie van Putten. “And then when somebody asked him if the victim was OK, he said ‘well, he’s breathing,’ then got back in his car, backed up, drove around the victim and left.”

The police recently released the surveillance video from the bus, whose driver witnessed the hit-and-run incident and helped to alert the police. According to the police, the motorist remained at the site of the collision less than one minute before ditching the scene, leaving a stunned witness to call for help.

The victim, who was crossing the street to catch the bus, hit his head after being struck by the SUV, which lunged forward from a complete stop to hit him. The victim was hospitalized for a few days but is now recovering at home.

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In taking off from the scene, the motorist was dashing away with some valuable evidence, namely, his vehicle, which could very well have emerged from the collision with telling front-end damage. But fortunately in this case, the motorist did leave behind a valuable piece of evidence in the form of the film image of him striking the pedestrian. And that video left little doubt for the police to conclude that this hit-and-run accident was an easy call to make.

“They (motorists) have a bump and think maybe they hit a rock or an animal or something,” said van Patten. “They don’t realize they had an accident, but in this case, it was very clear he did hit a person.”

The availability of a video of the incident will help to identify and track the suspect in the hit-and-run collision, who, if caught, faces felony charges. It also serves as a reminder that anyone who has been injured in a collision with a motor vehicle should, if at all possible, take as many photographs and/or video of the scene of the incident, or, even better, of the incident itself.
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With Numbers in, 2013 Goes Down as Deadly Year for Pedestrians in San Francisco

January 16, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

When there is a collision between a motor vehicle and a pedestrian, the encounter is almost always a no-contest situation – the pedestrian usually emerges as the decided loser from the collision. Unfortunately, San Francisco pedestrians were on the wrong and fatal end of an encounter with a motor vehicle 21 times in 2013, the highest number of pedestrian fatalities in the city since 2007. And San Francisco personal injury attorney Gregory J. Brod is particularly troubled that the city set a six-year high for pedestrian fatalities.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the unenviable numbers for pedestrian fatalities in San Francisco were registered through a deadly December, when six people died, including two on New Year’s Eve alone. But while the city did not surpass the 24 deaths recorded in 2007, the number of collisions between pedestrians and motor vehicles has been on an upward trajectory every year since 2009, when there were 734 collisions, to 2012 when there were 948 such collisions. The number of collisions for last year is not yet available.

There have been some notable cofactors involved with pedestrian fatalities or injuries in San Francisco, including the following:

The higher a motor vehicle’s speed, the more likely the pedestrian it strikes will die, as 90 percent die when the vehicle is traveling at 55 mph, 50 percent die at 40 mph, and 10 percent die at 25 mph
The failure of a motorist to yield to a pedestrian is cited as the cause of more than 40 percent of pedestrian collisions
Of those pedestrians who are injured in a collision with a motor vehicle, 70 percent sustained their injuries in an intersection
Approximately one-fourth of pedestrians injured are struck by motor vehicles making a left turn; 10 percent are injured by drivers making a right turn
Sixty percent of all severe injuries and fatalities occurred on just 6 percent of San Francisco’s total miles of streets

A more dangerous environment for pedestrians in San Francisco has become evident even as the city has long had a reputation for being one of the most pedestrian-friendly cities in the nation. Indeed, city officials have long vowed to address pedestrian safety, and successive mayors have made a reduction in the number of severe injuries and fatalities a municipal priority.

Interestingly enough, when it came to assessing fault in fatal collisions between motorists and pedestrians in 2013, the San Francisco Police Department put the blame on the motorist in 14 of the 21 cases and determined that the pedestrian was at fault in seven of the cases.
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Pedestrian Safety Tips Following Series of Fatal Pedestrian Accidents

January 7, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

Pedestrian safety is often on our minds as a leading San Francisco personal injury law firm. Sadly, it has also been on the minds of many in our region lately, with multiple pedestrian fatalities and pedestrian injuries marking the end of 2013 and the early days of 2014. We are proud to represent the wrongfully injured, but we are even prouder of our commitment to prevention and we felt this was an important time to share some pedestrian safety tips.

Pedestrian Accidents Mark End of 2013 and Start of 2014

We recently wrote about the death of an 11 year-old boy who succumbed to injuries incurred in a pedestrian accident in Sacramento on December 22. Unfortunately, the threat to pedestrians in our region continued through the late days of 2013 and the opening week of 2014, as documented by a report in last week’s Oakland Tribune. The final day of 2013 saw two pedestrian fatalities in two separate accidents. One of the incidents claimed the life of a 6 year-old girl and led to the driver being charged with both failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk and vehicular manslaughter involving gross negligence. The trend continued into 2014 and, on January 2 at approximately 5 P.M., police were called to the intersection of Bush and Leavenworth Streets after a car hit a pedestrian. The victim, described by officers as a man in his 20s, was taken to San Francisco General Hospital in serious condition with life-threatening injuries. Police are investigating and talking to the driver, who remained at the scene.

Young Sacramento Pedestrian Dies in Crosswalk Crash

December 29, 2013 | Gregory J. Brod

When it comes to cars versus pedestrians, it will never be a fair fight. A typical car weighs around 4,000 pounds while an average American male weighs in around 195lbs. Cars can easily top 100 miles per hours while the very fastest a person has been able to run (and for not nearly as long) is 27mph. When it is a car versus a pedestrian, the car is likely to “win” – an equation that makes pedestrian safety rules an important part of traffic safety and one of the reasons we believe so strongly in our work as a Sacramento pedestrian accident law firm. Pedestrian safety

Boy Hit By Two Cars Succumbs to Injuries

December 2013 turned tragic for a Sacramento family when, as reported by The Sacramento Bee, an 11 year old boy died after being hit by two vehicles on Bruceville Road. On Monday December 22 at 5:23 P.M., Moses Galang and another boy were running south on Bruceville when they passed through the crosswalk at the intersection with Cosumnes River Boulevard. While his companion passed safely, Galang was hit by two vehicles in a row. While the first vehicle stopped, the second did not. The latter vehicle is described as a white or light-colored full-sized van, believed to be a Ford or Chevy from the late 1970s or early 1980s. Moses was taken for treatment but succumbed to his injuries on Thursday morning.