A speeding pickup truck ran a stop sign and struck a parked car early Saturday in San Francisco’s Parkside neighborhood, triggering a domino-like series of collisions that, ultimately, left four parked cars severely damaged. The dramatic predawn incident was caught on video.
Video shows a truck blowing through a four-way intersection at Santiago Street and 28th Avenue. After a loud bang, the driver backs up slightly and drives away. The first car struck by the driver, a silver Toyota, was smashed on its right side at 2:36 a.m. on Saturday, its trunk hanging open and its back bumper dangling.
On Tuesday afternoon, two of the four damaged cars remained at the intersection. Pieces of red glass from a rear light scattered in the road. Drivers slowed as they passed by, seemingly appalled. “That’s really fucking bad,” one said.
The pickup truck seemed to be a Chevy Silverado, according to Noelia Arteaga, a Taraval Street resident who picked up a piece of bumper that had fallen off the truck in the crash and looked up its make and model. That model can weigh over two tons.
Arteaga, who has lived in the Sunset for a year, was on her way to see family in the Peninsula on Saturday afternoon when she saw neighbors gathering at the intersection. “What the hell happened?” Arteaga thought.
She drove by and saw her partner’s car had been damaged in the crash. “Oh my God,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it at first.”
She called the Taraval police station, but the officer who picked up the call said the station didn’t have time to send anyone to the four-car crash that had occurred earlier in the day, Arteaga said. The officer encouraged those impacted to come to the station to report the incident instead.
Since Saturday, Arteaga began her own investigation: She walked around the neighborhood and talked to neighbors. She made flyers asking for security footage. She emailed Supervisor Alan Wong. She made a public records request to the police department for its Flock camera footage.
So far, she’s gathered a series of security video footage and shared with the San Francisco Police Department, Arteaga said.
SFPD said it couldn’t locate a call for service or an incident report on the crash.
“People seem shaken and pretty upset,” Arteaga said. “It’s frustrating.”
SFPD can’t be bothered to investigate a driver who is lucky they didn’t kill anyone, and ought to lose their license? I’m shocked, shocked.
A hit and run involving property damage only is a misdemeanor, even if the damage is totaling three cars. Running a stop sign is an infraction. The person at the station was correct that the best approach is to go to the station to file a hit and run report. It doesn’t mean they don’t care, it just means that it’s not as high a priority as the many hit and run accidents involving injuries to people. And getting the Flock camera info is a great idea. So….Flock cameras good?
Speed cameras (could be Flock, or some other vendor) are ok and there’s been progress on overall speeding, but given people’s issues with Flock that will significantly set back expansion of the speed-camera program, in the near term it’s more effective to just install roundabouts at all the avenue intersections. Clueless drivers rail against them but they significantly slow cars down. This truck driver wouldn’t have had nearly the momentum it had to smash four vehicles if it had just gone through a roundabout. That’s physics.
I read that roundabouts aren’t installed as much to slow traffic as to improve traffic flow. For example, the Dewey Circle roundabout is designed incorrectly because it has stop signs that impede traffic. Without stop signs everyone drives into the circle slowly while giving the right of way to cars that are already in the roundabout. Roundabouts at the Gilman and 80 interchange seem to work well. I understand they are common in Europe but I have only seen a few.
Speed cameras do NOTHING to stop one-off accidents from people who don’t follow the law anyway, and having virtually zero traffic enforcement on the west side of the city has consequences that bike lanes, bumps, signs, slower limits etc has absolutely zero effect on.
This is why the Walk SF liars have made so much money while actual safety stats are getting WORSE – it’s a damn GRIFT.
the police didn’t find a service call….it seems that because they didn’t take a service call. Just like they didn’t take Arteaga’s call. Supervisor Wong needs to do something about this. Did you know that a 15 yr old boy was hit by a car on Friday afternoon on Quintana and 27thAve ? A hit and run.