Streetsblog San Francisco

Photo: Bryan Goebel

Featured on the front page of today’s San Francisco Chronicle and ABC 7 is an epic exposé on the lack of legal accountability for drivers who kill pedestrians in the Bay Area. The piece is by Zusha Elinson, a journalist at the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Streetsblog readers are all too familiar with the fact that drivers rarely face charges for killing pedestrians if they were sober and stayed on the scene. It’s promising to see so much press attention on a big story that’s remained under the radar of the mainstream media for too long.

Elinson analyzed years of police records from five Bay Area counties, explored the legal and cultural hurdles of penalizing those responsible for pedestrian fatalities, shared personal stories from family members of crash victims, and even delved into the history of motorization in the 1920s:

Pedestrian deaths made up more than a quarter of traffic fatalities over the past decade in the two major metropolitan areas in the Bay Area, according to a 2011 report by national transit advocacy group Transportation for America – outpaced only by New York and Los Angeles. An in-depth Center for Investigative Reporting review of the 434 pedestrians killed from 2007 through 2011 in the five largest Bay Area counties found that, like Joe Molinaro, one-third were walking in a crosswalk when they were struck – three times the national average, according to the group’s report. And in 2011, local fatalities increased almost 40 percent from the previous year.

Yet, more often than not, the drivers responsible faced no serious consequences.

Sixty percent of the 238 motorists found to be at fault or suspected of a crime faced no criminal charges during the five-year period, CIR found in its analysis of thousands of pages of police and court records from Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco counties.

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Photo: Lance Iverson, SF Chronicle

At the latest city hearing on pedestrian safety, Jane Kim, supervisor of District 6, which sees more pedestrian injuries than any other, contrasted the typical reaction to vehicular violence with the typical reaction to gun violence.

“We should treat cars, in many ways, like a weapon. It has the same impact,” said Kim, pointing out that at least one in five patients treated for traumatic injuries at SF hospitals are victims hit by drivers. “Even if intentional or not, when you are driving a car, you are driving a very dangerous weapon, and you can use it wisely, and use it safely, and not harm anyone, but you can really injure people severely and kill people.”

Yet when a driver kills or maims someone, chances are slim they’ll face any legal repercussions as long as they were sober and they didn’t flee the scene. Why are cars, which injure two to three people every day and killed as many as 20 last year, treated so differently than other weapons?

Of the nine people known to have been killed in San Francisco traffic so far this year, only two drivers are known to have been charged. David Morales was charged with murder after killing 26-year old Francisco Guitierrez and car passenger Silvia Tun Cun, 29, in a car crash when fleeing police after a shooting on New Year’s Day. Kieran Brewer is facing felony charges for killing Hanren Chang on her 17th birthday in a crosswalk while driving drunk on Sloat Boulevard.

Meanwhile, there’s no indication of any legal consequences for the drivers who killed Sunnyside Elementary custodian Becky Lee in a crosswalk last Wednesday, retired teacher Tania Madfes in a crosswalk in West Portal in late March, Eileen Barrett in a crosswalk at Lake Merced in February, Diana Sullivan on her bike on King Street in February, or Melissa Kitson, killed when she was apparently leaving her SoMa office in January.

So this seems to be the takeaway: If you want to kill someone in San Francisco and get away with it, use a car. Just don’t commit felonies or drink before you get behind the wheel.

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Yuee Yao, 56 (left) was killed by a drunk driver on a Twin Peaks road on December 20 during a visit from China. In a separate crash yesterday in the Mission, an unidentified 29-year-old woman (right) was killed while riding in a car, as was 26-year-old Francisco Gutierrez (no photo available) while walking into a convenience store. Drivers have been charged in both cases.

Two pedestrians and one vehicle passenger lost their lives in separate car crashes in the last two weeks, marking the last of 19 pedestrian deaths in 2012, and the first two traffic fatalities of 2013.

David Morales seen here during his arrest following the crash. Photo via KTVU

Yesterday at approximately 8 a.m., 19-year-old driver David Morales of San Francisco was fleeing from police when he crashed into a car at South Van Ness Avenue and 21st Streets, killing an unidentified woman in the car and causing it to slam into a corner store and kill 26-year-old Francisco Gutierrez as he was walking in, according to SFPD spokesperson Gordon Shyy. The driver of the car that was hit was also hospitalized with life threatening injuries, but has since been upgraded to critical condition.

Morales, who was arrested at the scene of the crash (captured in a video here), allegedly fled a traffic stop after police received calls about a shooting at the Valencia Gardens housing complex at 14th and Guererro Streets, according to the SFPD. Morales was charged with two counts of murder for the fatalities caused by the crash, as well as multiple other charges in relation to the shooting.

The scene of the car crash at 21st St. and South Van Ness Ave. during a police chase on New Year's Day. Photo: Michael Macor, SFGate

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One of these things is not like the others: District Attorney George Gascón's new ad campaign would have San Franciscans believe that driving into a crosswalk full of pedestrians is no more dangerous than crossing against a signal on foot or bike.

For a district attorney who wants to save lives on the streets, using data to target the most dangerous traffic behaviors should be a no-brainer.

But the new traffic safety ad campaign announced today by San Francisco DA George Gascón seems to use little application of crash data collected by his own former police department. The three versions of the ad, which feature the tagline “What’s the Rush?,” list fines for respective traffic violations and plead, “Let’s all work together to make our streets safe.”

It’s encouraging that the DA is bringing attention to the need for safer streets: As a press release from his office noted, “Among California cities, San Francisco has historically had the highest per capita vehicle-pedestrian injury collision rate.” In 2011, 28 people were killed on San Francisco streets: 17 pedestrians, three bicyclists, and eight people in motor vehicles.

But not only do but the ads fail to target the most common causes of injuries and deaths on San Francisco streets — by seeming to equate plowing through pedestrians in a crosswalk with crossing against a light on bike or foot, they downplay the disproportionately greater risk inherent in driving a motor vehicle.

Rather than emphasize fines, a more effective approach for the campaign might be to list the number of people injured or killed by such violations each year. Fortunately, that data is summarized in the SF Municipal Transportation Agency’s 2010-2011 Traffic Collision Report [PDF], the most recent one available.

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On October 23, 55-year-old Elvis Presley was sleeping on a sidewalk on Third Street near Bryant when he was run over and killed by a 28-year-old woman pulling her car out of a garage. Contrary to media reports, police confirmed that the woman was driving forward, not backing out, onto the sidewalk.

Based on media reports, this may be the garage where Presley was run over. Photo: Google Maps

Presley’s death was ruled an “accident,” and the woman will face no charges nor receive a citation, said SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza. Her name will not be released, as she is not considered a suspect, he said.

The case seems yet another affirmation of the status quo: Killing another person is just fine, as long as it’s done with a motor vehicle, the driver isn’t intoxicated, and claims it was an accident.

“If you are behind the wheel of a two-ton vehicle, it IS your responsibility to make sure your path is clear,” wrote Streetsblog reader Tami in an email. “In a densely populated city it is reasonable to expect for a dog, child or person to be in your path. It is insufficient to say, ‘I didn’t see him.’”

“Nobody deserves to die that way,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe. “I’d want to know more about what happened, and how on earth the driver didn’t notice that her car was actually running over someone.”

A highway overpass with a narrow sidewalk is the only connection for residents on the west side of East Palo Alto who need to walk or bike to access the east side. Photos: Bryan Goebel

This is the first in a series of stories on East Palo Alto’s proposed bicycle and pedestrian overcrossing.

It takes Maria del Socorro Macias about 40 minutes to walk from her neighborhood on the west side of East Palo Alto to her kids’ schools on the east side of Highway 101. To get there, she has to take a narrow sidewalk on the University Avenue overpass and walk through the city’s most congested intersection.

“It is very dangerous,” del Socorro Macias, 48, told Streetsblog through a Spanish interpreter. “There are numerous traffic lights to cross to get to the schools. It is especially dangerous walking at night, but I often do it because I attend school meetings and parent workshops.”

On foot and by bicycle, it’s a risky journey that countless East Palo Altans have been forced to take for decades, ever since the freeway sliced through their community. To visit friends, to get to church, to the library, or to Mi Pueblo – for now the city’s only grocery store — west side residents, many of whom have low incomes and don’t own cars, must contend with the freeway crossing and unforgiving street traffic.

“There’s a four-foot wide sidewalk that leads to the intersection with the highest traffic in the city,” said Brent Butler, the city’s planning manager. “It’s unsafe.”

A 2010 analysis noted that, among 97 California cities, East Palo Alto has the third-highest ratio of pedestrian collisions to the volume of driving.

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The SF District Attorney’s office has put charges on hold against the driver who killed pedestrian Francisco Huarcha-Salanic, 31, on Bayshore Boulevard on the dangerous junction with Highway 101 known as the “Hairball.”

The approximate area where Francisco Huarcha-Salanic was killed by driver Caitlin Rea. Photo: Google Maps

The driver, 25-year-old Caitlin Rea, was arrested for driving under the influence and vehicular manslaughter after hitting and killing Huarcha-Salanic at 12:40 a.m. on September 21, according to SFPD spokesperson Michael Andraychak. The crash occurred about 60 feet south of the point where several ramps merge together onto southbound Bayshore from eastbound Cesar Chavez Street and southbound Potrero Avenue.

However, as Bay City News reported on SF Appeal today, prosecutors “discharged” the case on September 28, pending further investigation. ”Once further investigation has been completed, we will charge the case accordingly,” DA spokesperson Alex Bastian told Streetsblog. (Note: SF Appeal’s headline had originally stated that the DA wouldn’t charge the driver, but it was later corrected to reflect that the charges were only put on hold.) Bastian said he couldn’t comment on the investigation.

The existing means for pedestrians to cross the Hairball. Image from the SF Planning Department's Cesar Chavez East Community Design Plan

While we don’t know why Huarcha-Salanic was crossing the road in the area, the Hairball is widely considered one of the city’s most dangerous and difficult areas for pedestrians to traverse. Crossing it from Bayshore requires pedestrians to make an extensive detour, and the crosswalks that do exist provide far from any guarantee of safety. The distance between the two nearest crosswalks on Bayshore, located at Cesar Chavez and Oakdale Avenue, is roughly half a mile, judging by Google Maps.

The Planning Department’s Cesar Chavez East Community Design Plan, released in February, is intended as a guide for a long-term re-envisioning of the Hairball and the eastern section of Cesar Chavez, but it doesn’t recommend adding any pedestrian crossings on Bayshore.