The intersection at 16th and Mission streets has now claimed four pedestrian deaths in four years, easily making it one of SF’s deadliest pedestrian walkways.
San Francisco is pedestrian safety. Despite the City’s increase in protected bike lanes, implementation of lower speed limits and “no right on red” initiatives, and growing car-free street networks, SF has seen a record-breaking number of pedestrian deaths in 2024. (As we mentioned before, this year has also shown light on the disproportionate danger senior citizens in San Francisco face going about the city on foot; about half of this year’s pedestrian deaths involved people above the age of 65 years old.)
On Sunday, November 24th, a middle-aged male was fatally struck by a passenger car at 16th and Mission Streets, becoming the 22nd pedestrian death recorded in San Francisco for 2024. Alas, the pedestrian death of the yet-named man denotes 2024 as the deadliest calendar year for pedestrians in SF in over a decade.
The intersection where the man died inside is notorious for pedestrian deaths and traffic-related injuries. According to Walk San Francisco, a local non-profit organized around bettering the city’s pedestrian safety initiatives, four people have now died inside this intersection since 2020; the intersection also falls inside SF’s high-injury network — a collection of roadway sections and intersections that account for nearly 70% of pedestrian fatality injuries — and is plagued by dangerous thru traffic.
San Francisco’s recent pedestrian fatality exists inside a greater nationwide trend; pedestrian deaths are at a 40-year historic high in the United States. Speed, too, remains the most predictable variable in determining the deadly potential of a pedestrian-involved crash; a 40 mph crash with a pedestrian has a 75% chance of leaving the person outside the vehicle with life-threatening injuries, compared to a 25% if the vehicle was traveling at 25 mph.
As cars become increasingly heavier and capable of more easily reaching faster speeds — nowadays, it’s not uncommon for a sub-$50,000 vehicle to reach 60mp in less than four seconds, which was a feat only afforded to supercars and hypercars with price tags north of $250,000 just a decade ago; speed has now been more democratized across the board, by and large because of the adoption of electric motors in passenger cars; that’s bad news for pedestrians — that trend will likely continue soaring.
Feature Image: Screenshot via Google Maps
He was lying in the road, though, wasnt he? Kinda hard to blame anyone else for that.