A 25-year-old woman riding a bicycle was critically injured in a collision with a food delivery truck at the intersection of Mission and Fremont streets this morning. San Francisco police blamed the bicyclist because investigators determined she was making an illegal left turn onto Fremont, which is prohibited except for taxis and buses.
"All indications show that they both had the green light but this intersection is a no left turn, clearly marked, and she turned left in front of the truck, so that is the primary reason for the accident," Lt. Troy Dangerfield told reporters. He said the bicyclist was traveling eastbound on Mission Street, and the truck driver was headed westbound around 8:04 a.m.
At the scene, the truck was parked in the crosswalk, and had a shattered windshield and large dent in the front. A white plastic bag kept in place by orange traffic cones covered a pool of blood and one of the victim's brown shoes. The other shoe was strewn a few dozen feet across the intersection. The twisted white bicycle, which appeared to be a single speed, was taken away for evidence.
Dangerfield said he didn't know anything about the truck driver, or how fast he was going at the time. He said commercial drivers involved in crashes are routinely tested for drugs and alcohol, but that didn't appear to be a factor in the crash. The truck is owned by Sunrise Foods based in the East Bay city of Newark.
Police could not immediately identify the bicyclist, describing her only as an Asian woman in her 20s. The SFPD press office had initially said that she died, but retracted the statement to report that "the victim's status is currently life threatening at the hospital."
A camera at a nearby business apparently caught the crash on video and Dangerfield said it would be used in the investigation.
