A passenger and driver were thrown from a yellow GoCar guided vehicle during a collision Sunday afternoon at 24th Street and South Van Ness Avenue. Both sustained non-life threatening injuries, according to police, and were transported to the hospital.
Three witnesses said they saw a grey Toyota sedan going eastbound on 24th Street when it collided with a three-wheeled yellow GoCar going southbound on South Van Ness Avenue. The two passengers of the GoCar, a man and a woman, were then thrown from the vehicle and hit the ground, the three witnesses said.
“I just heard the crash and saw the people fall out,” said a woman named Frances, who declined to give her last name and lives nearby. “We didn’t see much blood. The girl was bleeding through her nose.”
“We heard the brakes screeching,” said Vineet, another nearby resident who also declined to give a last name. Both said the two were taken away in an ambulance and were awake and breathing, though shaken.
A third witness emailed after the incident saying the sedan had been going eastbound on 24th Street on a green light when the GoCar ran a red light and entered the intersection “at full traffic speed,” clipping the sedan on the left and ejecting both occupants from the vehicle.
“The light had been red for a couple of seconds. The GoCar hit the left front corner of the grey car and both passengers were thrown from the vehicle, one to either side of the GoCar,” the witness, who was going southbound on 24th Street on his bicycle and wished to remain anonymous, wrote. The witness then called 911 to report the crash.
It was unclear if either passenger was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash. Helmets were seen in the GoCar after the crash, but the victims did not have them on when they were lying on the ground.
“We provide the helmets and they’re supposed to wear them,” said Patrick Kane, a customer representative with GoCar, which is located near Fisherman’s Wharf and started giving sightseeing tours in San Francisco in 2004. He said that providing and wearing a helmet were required by state law.
Police said the occupant of the sedan was unhurt. There was no indication alcohol was involved, police said, and the crash is under investigation.
Traffic was closed on 24th Street from Mission to Shotwell streets and on South Van Ness Avenue from 23rd to 25th streets at 2 p.m.
George Lipp and Lydia Chávez contributed to this report.
Do these things have seat belts?
Please use the term “collision” or “crash” instead of “accident,” which implies that this incident just happened and couldn’t have been foreseen or prevented. Clearly, if one vehicle was going east and the other going south and they met in the signalized intersection, somebody did something wrong and this crash could have been prevented with a little more care. Our streets will become safer for all of us when we stop shrugging off such consequences and treat crashes with the gravity and concern they deserve.
Good point Fran. Fixed.