Update: The fourth member of the family, a 2-month-old infant, was reported deceased on Wednesday, March 20.
Hundreds of people filled a West Portal intersection on Monday afternoon at a vigil for Mission District residents Matilde Ramos Pinto, 38, and Diego Cardoso de Oliveira, 40, who, along with their toddler, were killed on Saturday after a woman drove an SUV into a bus stop.
The couple’s second child, an infant son, is in critical condition at a local hospital, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
Friends, strangers and colleagues laid flowers, treats and stuffed animals around the area where a bench once stood in front of the West Portal library branch — the place where the family had been waiting for a bus to the zoo. It was the couple’s wedding anniversary, according to Leticia, a family friend who was at the vigil.
The bus stop and the bench at Ulloa Street and Lenox Way had been removed by Monday. Across the street, where the victims’ bodies were reportedly thrown, was another small altar. In the crowd, friends and strangers alike cried silently as a pianist played Amazing Grace on a keyboard.
“They were amazing,” said Leticia, a friend of the couple, who first met Oliveira when he moved to San Francisco about five years ago, and met Ramos Pinto shortly thereafter. “They were the most loved people you can imagine in your life.”
Ramos Pinto, an immigrant from Portugal, was a producer with an advertising agency, and Oliveira, from Brazil, was a creative director at Apple. They lived with their two children just a couple of blocks from Dolores Park.
Leticia said the couple loved music, hanging out at the park with friends, taking day trips and having picnics.
“They were always in love with the neighborhood,” she said. “They were super neighborhood-advocated.”
The deadly crash occurred just after noon on Saturday, March 16. The driver, Mary Fong Lau, 78, was arrested on Sunday on three counts of vehicular manslaughter, driving the wrong way on a divided highway, unsafe speed, and reckless driving.
As of Monday afternoon, Lau had not been charged. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said in statement that her office is “in the process of receiving case information and evidence from the police department.” The toxicology results, she wrote, would take time to process, and the vehicle had to be checked for mechanical issues.
The deaths bring this year’s total traffic fatalities in San Francisco up to 10.
The family’s nanny, Silvia Hernandez, remembered Ramos Pinto as a “beautiful human” with a “big heart.”
“She spoke in Portugués with the kids, she gave me my coffee in the mornings,” Hernandez remembered, switching between Spanish and English. “I can only say that they were good people. I carry that in my mind and in my heart.”
Police say Lau was driving a white Mercedes SUV east on Ulloa Street, and was approaching the busy West Portal light rail station. It is unclear how her vehicle ended up on the wrong side of the road, crushed in front of the West Portal library branch at Ulloa and Lenox Way. On Monday, heavy scrapes were visible along the side of the building.
Oliveira and the toddler were declared dead at the scene. Ramos Pinto was taken to a hospital, where she was declared dead.
“Hopefully, this is a wake-up call that something has to change, said Jodie Medeiros, the executive director of WalkSF, noting that various city officials from the police chief to the mayor to the Municipal Transportation Agency director were in the crowd. “If the city is serious about ending our traffic fatalities, let’s treat this like the urgent issue that it is.”
Just beyond the curb from the altar, flimsy plastic posts stood around the intersection, and painted barriers separated the lanes.
Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who also attended the vigil in her district, hit one of the posts to demonstrate how easily it gave way. She said the city needs better physical barriers and traffic enforcement.
“I want metal, concrete bollards on the side of bus shelters, intersections that are known to be dangerous like this, where we know there’s multiple things going on — cars, trains, pedestrians, and kids,” Melgar said.
She noted that, just a year prior, a family was hit nearby and the father lost his legs.
“What I’ve seen is a steep increase in people running stop signs, going too fast, running red lights, and now it’s like we’ve normalized the behavior,” Melgar said. “And it really, I think, has made us all less safe.”
Pauline, a nearby resident, said she was surprised to hear the news of the crash in her quiet neighborhood, but said she knew the intersection was problematic. “People don’t understand the traffic signs,” she said. Drivers often don’t realize the lights are for the buses and trains only, she said, so she has seen cars blow through the stop sign.
But usually, Pauline said, this doesn’t happen at the high speeds of Saturday’s crash.
Medeiros called for large-scale changes to the city’s streets, saying “no one should die while simply waiting for the bus or crossing the street in our city.”
A GoFundMe for Silvia Hernandez, the family’s nanny, has been set up here.
Traffic citations in San Francisco are down 97% from pre pandemic levels.
The source of the statistic is a report from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which revealed that traffic citations in San Francisco have declined by 97% in the past eight years. This information was presented in a hearing by the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on September 28, 2023. The decline in traffic citations is attributed to various factors, including changes in enforcement priorities and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on traffic patterns.
Nevermind. Found it. page 6 of “SFPD Presentation 092823.pdf” also page 6 of “SFPD PPT 101322.pdf”
https://sfgov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=5817439&GUID=8571E6B6-79D6-4B99-8048-A921526A3E27
TL;DR
2014: 129,597 citations and 2010 sworn police officers
2021: 9,664 citations and 2059 sworn police officers
Something is very wrong with this picture….
>> ” The decline in traffic citations is attributed to various factors, including changes in enforcement priorities and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on traffic patterns.”
Also, let’s not forget that SF cops openly did a “quiet quitting” on many fronts as some sort of righteous stand against the former DA who was recalled. It appears clear that they have neglected to pick up the steam even now that they have a more ideologically favorable DA in office. What gives?
I’m aware it is a hard job! But does anyone ever see cops on patrol? Or pulling drivers over and issuing citations? My lying eyes show me plenty of SFPD standing around and then jumping into action once “they get a call” – which, great! – thanks for doing the bare minimum. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking we live in a city with a proactive and engaged police force. Because the evidence is clear – we do NOT.
The decline kicks in 10 years ago, with around 80% of the decline happening *before* COVID, from around 11-12k in 2014 to around 2K in 2019 before completely falling off the cliff and never restarting after COVID. Click the “total number of traffic citations” tab on this page for the data:
https://sfgov.org/scorecards/transportation/percentage-citations-top-five-causes-collisions
That SFPD has simply stopped doing their jobs, and no one on the BOS (of any political stripe!) seems to care, is appalling.
Very disturbing statistic. I’m feeling a tad lazy (or just busy) and would rather not try Googling for the report if I don’t have to. Do you have a link to the report? Thanks in advance!
Our close community in West Portal is devastated by the loss of this beautiful family. We are heartbroken. The bus stop is in front of the library, on the corner across from the muni station, at the bottom of the hill from a playground & local school. To have such a dreadful catastrophic event happen right here is unfathomable . Drivers need to slow down, and follow traffic rules. Pedestrians are frequently at risk just walking down the street, let alone sitting at a bus stop on the way to the zoo. We are all grieving.
The behavior of some of the drivers in this city has gotten out of control, as I’m sure many of you have experienced first-hand. Speeding, running red lights, and hit-and-runs have become far too common. Crosswalks in particular have become a “game of chicken” between pedestrians and vehicles. Our current strategy clearly isn’t working, so I’d like to see our legislative body empower the people of this city to fight back. The IRS provides rewards for information about tax fraud — 15% to 30% of the recoveries, through Form 3949-A and Form 211 — and New York City similarly provides rewards for reporting vehicles idling illegally through their Citizens Air Complaint Program. San Francisco should adopt a similar program, allowing citizens to report and provide evidence of illegal vehicular operation, and provide rewards in cases of successful citation or prosecution. We need to take back our streets and make it clear to everyone that reckless driving will cost you.
Now, is this proposal equitable? Are there negative second-order effects? I’m not qualified to make that judgment, but I haven’t heard this option proposed and I think it should be evaluated and considered. Please, talk to your district supervisor and push for better street safety. It benefits all of us, and maybe it will help reduce the chances of a tragedy like this from happening again.
Rewards won’t help unless the information actually leads to consequences for the scofflaw drivers. And unfortunately, under current policies, it doesn’t seem likely that it would. See the report linked by another commenter about the plunge in traffic citations from SFPD.
Conversely, if the city got its act together again to enforce traffic laws and it became the case that reporting a reckless scofflaw driver was likely to lead to results… well, rewards might be nice, but I think quite a lot of people would be glad to report such incidents for free.
I take the train through this intersection many times a week (including twice on Saturday using the shuttles and navigating around this tragedy).
At about 3:10 on a Tuesday, today, I sat on the inbound train at this intersection watching in horror as at least 9 cars tried to cut in front of both my train and the one pulling onto WP Ave.
There were about 6 HS students, a handful of elders, and at least one family with a stroller trying to cross while cars cut them off in their attempt to get in front of the train before it crossed their path, cutting into their precious drive time.
This doesn’t even count the number of cars racing through the stop sign a few blocks south of the station. All to cut off the train, also cutting off pedestrians actively in the intersection.
WP needs a major revamp. The neighbors in this area need to buy into the notion that business-as-usual is just not safe. Cars can’t be the #1 priority when there are (someday again) three train lines and a bunch of bus lines, students of all ages, elders, tourists, and just regular people coming through.
Muni needs to speed up trains entering and exiting West Portal Station. It takes forever, so drivers and pedestrians got accustomed to trying to cut in front, or chance having to wait for minutes with a train blocking the intersection. Here’s a couple of suggestions:
Low hanging fruit: Operators and others need to stop chatting and giggling it up when an OB train is ready to leave the station when it is their turn to pull into the intersection.
Turn the IB trains around quicker to clear the station. Reportedly, they’ll throw more money at revamping the ATCS in the coming years, that would be a welcome improvement.
SFMTA needs to add elevators at the station for ADA compliance so they can block people from crossing the tracks at the station gates.
But fear not, for years now SFMTA’s been pushing against West Portal merchants to try close the intersection for traffic altogether. My money’s on SFMTA using this situation as leverage to get their way.
So long as speed and efficiency of motor vehicle traffic is prioritized over pedestrian safety, this will continue. Don’t blame the driver. There’s a century-old ugly underside to all traffic planning in this country: The lives of our loved ones are considered an acceptable cost for the dominance of the motor vehicle. This could be prevented with bollards along the side of sidewalks – but that won’t fly because people may dent their car doors (see the tradeoff?) Speeds could be controlled by changing the roads to force cars to slow down, but even speed humps get incapacitated by cutouts for “emergency vehicles” (and everyone else).
don’t blame the driver? she drove the wrong way and crashed into a bus stop killing 3 and leaving an infant child with no family and possible life long disabilities and you’re saying don’t blame the driver? what a joke.
Apparently, traffic lanes, sidewalks, and people aren’t the driver’s responsibility, the deceased should have only been on a sidewalk with bollards if they wanted to survive the day.
I can’t believe that people actually think they aren’t responsible for the direction they point their car and drive, but then I think of the person hit at a bus stop on Potrero and 16th, the 4 year old killed in a stroller at 4th and King crosswalks, the person killed in the Target parking lot on Division st – all in the last year – and I realize that yeah, people don’t really think they’re responsible for the car they’re driving.
You turn driving into an obstacle course, you get aggravated drivers and with that, the opposite results of what you’re trying to accomplish. I guarantee you SFMTA will continue retarding driving around town, while they’ll continue scratching their heads how the accident numbers don’t go down.
Safer infrastructure is possible. Even LA just voted for it – note that the government officials were against the measure.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/3/12/the-people-of-los-angeles-just-said-yes-to-safer-streets
This is a tragedy and my heart aches for this senseless loss of life. I live in Bernal Heights near where Virginia slopes down to Mission Street. I’ve called and written Hilary Ronen’s office about the fact that drivers drive recklessly down the hill and blow through the stop signs. I’ve never even received a response. This city is lawless dumpster fire and our elected leaders are useless.
Don’t know what laws would’ve prevented this. She broke at least two really basic ones. Short placing concrete barriers in front of bus stops, and even then, if someone is so out of control, no controlling what happens or doesn’t. Horrible scene that will wreck memories of so many…
This was such a stupid accident. It should never have happened. I feel so bad for the family’s community, friends, and relatives.
The laws need to be stricter just like everything else in California. Criminals, cars out of control, murders, you name it. If this woman did not have a medical emergency, then she should pay for what she has done. Praying for the family🙏🏻🙏🏻
i dont know if people w an agenda are deliberately misrepresenting where this happened or just dont know what they are talking about. this was at LENOX & ulloa, NOT west portal ave & ulloa. it was a freak accident. how she could have turned left onto the oncoming traffic lane, hit the library, then bounced into the bus stop bench has nothing to do with traffic signs & other vehicles. it’s on HER, not other drivers. we’ll hear eventually whether it was a medical emergency like a stroke, mental illness, or extremely irresponsible driving
No one has even mentioned the speed limit. Blaming the street design, this & that. Drivers need to slow the F down, especially if they’re confused.
I’ve lived in SF for 20 years. Bad drivers have gotten worse. Impatient, entitled, angry, and they let you know it when they’re pissed that you’re respecting traffic laws & the speed limit. What SF needs is more traffic cops issuing citations. Full stop.
I used to live at West Portal and that intersection is very confusing. If you aren’t paying attention, rushing, or if you are worried about oncoming buses or trains, you can get confused as a driver, especially someone who isn’t used to driving around street cars. Muni’s design plays atleast a partial role.
This is a terrifying tragedy. What a nightmare.
What is it about the white Mercedes? Drivers over a certain age should not be in oversized vehicles.
Though I agree “certain” intersections need some safety improvement, this accident was unpreventable. An old lady having a moment pressing the gas pedal. Nothing could have prevented this horrible accident. But it is true, running red lights and stop signs is the norm and SFPD needs to step it up with enforcement. It’s the wild wild west out there in the streets of SF.
Sorry, but this sounds like the hearts and minds talk of the pro-gun lobby. This is just one of many cases that would be preventable with infrastructure. But that infrastructure would reduce the speed and ease of automobile use; a cost which, so far, most people don’t seem to be willing to accept.
There are many ways that engineering could have been used to prevent this, but the simplest and most obvious one is simply putting bollards in front of bus stops and other places where people congregate on sidewalks.
($500 drones also have speed limiters tied to GPS location, but we’re not ready to have those discussions yet. So let’s just start with bollards.)
It seems to me that some concrete bollards around the bus station, as suggested, would have prevented the old lady, even after having pressed the gas pedal, from crashing her car into multiple fleshy humans instead of something strong enough to withstand the impact and stop the car.
I can’t understand how driving the wrong way, onto a sidewalk, into people somehow isn’t the problem for you, its engineering.
I see there are several of you in the comments, can you engineer a big hi-vis thing on your car that lets me know what your beliefs about traffic? I want to be able to stay away from your line of thinking next time I’m on a sidewalk next to a street.