Update: The man, identified as 80-year-old Jian Huang, has since succumbed to his injuries.
A man was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries Wednesday afternoon after a ride-hail driver in an car hit him while he was crossing the street.
Police officers responded to 18th and Valencia streets at 1:30 p.m. and found a pedestrian injured from a vehicle collision, San Francisco Police Department spokesman Robert Rueca said in a statement. Officers called paramedics, who quickly transported the man to the hospital.
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Around 1:30 p.m., a man crossing near Yellow Moto Pizza was struck by a car as it turned left on to Valencia St.
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Around 1:30 p.m., a man crossing near Yellow Moto Pizza was struck by a car as it turned left on to Valencia St.
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Chart by Xueer Lu. Basemap from Mapbox.
“He couldn’t get up on his own,” said Maritza Rocha Alvarez, the bar manager at Yellow Moto Pizzeria, who saw the collision from the restaurant’s window. “He was conscious, but clearly in pain.”
Alvarez said the victim was an older gentleman who was in the crosswalk pushing a shopping cart east on Valencia Street. An driver heading west down 18th Street then turned left onto Valencia Street and struck him.
The victim was well into the crosswalk and “clearly had the right of way,” but the driver, whom Alvarez said was a ridehail driver, “didn’t yield.”
When the car hit him, the man “bounced off” the front fender and fell, Alvarez recalled. The driver remained on scene, police said, and did not appear to be intoxicated from drugs or alcohol.
Though Alvarez did not know the man personally, she said others identified him as a local who lived “close by.” Shortly after he was hit, his wife reportedly arrived on the scene.
Alvarez said the victim’s mouth looked “red” and that he was possibly bleeding; she observed him being carried away to the ambulance. By 2 p.m., there were no signs of any police cars or paramedics at the scene.
Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital confirmed that the victim was, as of Wednesday afternoon, in “critical condition.”
Valencia Street is on the High Injury Network, a collection of San Francisco roadways where traffic collisions most often occur. Under Vision Zero, a data project that tracks traffic collisions, 16 people have died by a collision in San Francisco through August this year, and 12 of those have been pedestrians. Three pedestrians had died in August 2023, the most recent month of data available.
Correction: A previous version of this story identified the vehicle as an SUV, following an eyewitness account. The vehicle was a car.
I don’t know what it is about that left onto Valencia recently, but people seem to take it really fast, and always cut it – resulting in the first pylon/bollard marking the new bike lane already being destroyed. Since SFPD has abdicated traffic enforcement, we’re going to see more and more of this. I’m nearly clipped weekly.
The turning radius has changed significantly with the new bike lane. To make the turn properly (at a right angle) drivers have to be very far forward into the intersection, and there is a brief window of time to execute the turn while watching for oncoming cars (including left turners in the other direction) and pedestrians who rightly take the whole light cycle. It feels vulnerable for drivers to hang out in the intersection like that (yes, ironic) and so they rush the turn and make bad decisions. Same thing has happened with left turns onto Van Ness with the new BRT lane. The city needs to immediately ban left turns onto Valencia. Then unwind the whole mess.
I wish the community were empowered to raise money to buy and replace broken pylons/bollards.
This is preventable. No more cars on Valencia!
Please re check the vision 0 doc— it’s 12 pedestrians killed by cars as of the end of August. Good article — just want to make sure people are seeing the correct high number of pedestrians killed by cars.
Once again, Vision Zero turns out to be more Zero Vision.
Banish left turns on Valencia Street
We need pedestrian lights like Massachusetts has.
When pedestrians have a solid red and yellow light then all pedestrians walk on all 4 crosswalks through the intersection.
No traffic is moving.
Then when the red and yellow light begins blinking it means all pedestrians must stay on the curbs,.
Traffic moves first in one direction and then traffic moves in the other direction. As it does here. But no pedestrians are moving at the same time.
This system works well in Mass where there are very few traffic/pedestrian fatalities.
This is what this city and California needs.
I lived there and was surprised to see how pedestrians and traffic are moving at the same time when I relocated here.
All officials need to do is reset the lights as explained and have public service education. It would cut way down on traffic/pedestrian accidents.
I was just hit by a car on Tuesday at 18th and Valencia. I was on my bike in the bike lane and the car was turning left onto 18th. I actually felt bad for the driver.
Why should you feel bad for a driver that was reckless, broke traffic laws, and almost killed you? They should feel bad.
because the new bike lane is not working. He was a hard working hospital worker who made a mistake on a street that is confusing for drivers and bikes. Anyone can make a mistake while driving but the way this street is set up, mistakes are easy to make. I’m not perfect on my feet, on my bike or in my car but i know how devastated i would feel if i hurt anyone.
Another pedestrian killed by a human driver… How many pedestrians have self driving cars killed so far? The agitation about robot cars seems overblown when we see that most of road fatalities are produced by distracted or unruly human drivers that violate traffic laws and face no accountability for their actions. The city can physically modify streets and lower speed limits over and over, but people will always find away around if there are no real consequences for them, or until they kill someone. The pretense that the city cares about its people borders on hypocrisy, in my opinion.
Should never happen. Peds have right of way. Two points:
1 – Why no mention of if/what the driver was charged with? Is (s)he going to go scotfree as always? Vehicular assault should be a minimum.
2 – NOT at all to defend the driver, but the crappy bollards and overdone street paint markings do distract a left-turning driver. I found myself creeping along to be sure I was “in the lane” into Valencia. Get rid of that ridiculous center bike lane.