San Francisco Car Violence
San Francisco
Car Violence

In 2014, San Francisco instituted a Vision Zero program committing the city to zero traffic related fatalities by 2024. Since San Francisco's Vision Zero program went into effect 10 years ago, 333 people have been killed by traffic violence on its streets and 2,598 have been seriously injured by impatient and distracted drivers. According to data from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, a driver crashes their car AND injures someone in San Francisco approximately every 2.49 hours. That is more than seven times per day, every single day and yet the majority of San Francisco's elected officials refuse to take this public health crisis seriously or even acknowledge when a pedestrian is killed in their district. As San Francisco continues to lose approximately 30 people to traffic violence annually, it is clear that after 10 years its Vision Zero program has failed, despite the city pouring millions of dollars into it.

This project tracks every motor vehicle crash on San Francisco's streets, attempts to identify the victims, analyzes the circumstances surrounding each crash and will soon provide data-backed guidance that will help San Francisco and the SFMTA achieve Vision Zero if they choose to embrace it. We are also actively researching the political response to every fatality on our streets (or lack thereof), promises made to improve safety at a crash site and what each politician has actually done. The goal of this project is to inform you, the voters of San Francisco, of the ongoing violence on our streets, help our elected officials address it and hold them accountable for delays and inaction. San Francisco can achieve Vision Zero but that will only happen if we work together and demand that our elected officials take immediate and aggressive action to slow our streets and prioritize the safety of our most vulnerable road users over the expediency of cars.

Traffic Fatalities Citywide

Since San Francisco adopted its Vision Zero program in 2014, 333 people have been killed by traffic violence on its streets. That equates to a traffic related fatality every 12.01 days. The most recent fatality was on December 14th which was 7 Days Ago. San Francisco can expect to experience its next traffic related fatality on December 25th which is in 4 days. As of today, December 21st, there have been 38 traffic related fatalities so far this year. San Francisco currently averages about 30 fatalities per year and the second chart shows the city's current running average which is calculated by dividing the number of days since the beginning of the year for each fatality by the number of fatalites recorded by that date, divided by 365. As times passes without a fatality, the running average will decrease and conversely rise when someone is killed.

Fatalities Over Time
Fatalities This Year
Traffic Injuries By District

The following two charts breakdown injuries by supervisor district. Fatality data was sourced from here and here. Crash data is released by the San Francisco Department of Public Health on a quarterly basis. 2024 Q3 data (July - September) is expected to be released in November and will be included here as soon as it's available.

Fatalities By District (2014 - PRESENT)
Injuries By District Over Time (2014 - Q2 2024)
Injuries By Elected Office

We believe that safe streets and healthy cities are political decisions. To achieve Vision Zero, we must track and hold our elected officials accountable to everything they say, do and don't do. The following breaks out injuries within each supervisor district and across the city since each elected official has taken office. The first step to achieving Vision Zero is to publicly acknowledge every fatality on our streets. The second is to take immediate action. With few exceptions, the majority of San Francisco's supervisors have failed to publicly acknowledge when someone was killed in their district which is simply unacceptable. Our next step is to research the political response to every fatality since 2014, SFMTA's "rapid response" at the crash site and what, if anything, has changed to make the crash site safer. This work will require a significant amount of time to "sunshine" the city by submitting FOIA requests for public records before we can analyze and socialize that data. If you value that research as much as we do, please support our work.

Dean Preston
Supervisior – District 5
12/16/2019 – 2025
Total Injuries
1,978
Injury Every
22.45 hours
1,268
Mild
516
Moderate
174
Severe
20
Fatal
London Breed
Mayor – San Francisco
07/11/2018 – 2025
Total Injuries
22,839
Injury Every
2.49 hours
14,867
Mild
5,863
Moderate
1,895
Severe
214
Fatal
Connie Chan
Supervisior – District 1
01/08/2021 – 2025
Total Injuries
766
Injury Every
1.91 days
506
Mild
196
Moderate
57
Severe
7
Fatal
Catherine Stefani
Supervisior – District 2
01/30/2018 – 2027
Total Injuries
1,760
Injury Every
1.86 days
1,108
Mild
479
Moderate
156
Severe
17
Fatal
Aaron Peskin
Supervisior – District 3
06/09/2015 – 2025
Total Injuries
3,499
Injury Every
1.00 days
2,124
Mild
996
Moderate
351
Severe
28
Fatal
Myrna Melgar
Supervisior – District 7
01/08/2021 – 2025
Total Injuries
840
Injury Every
1.74 days
535
Mild
226
Moderate
67
Severe
12
Fatal
Rafael Mandelman
Supervisior – District 8
07/11/2018 – 2027
Total Injuries
1,560
Injury Every
1.99 days
958
Mild
440
Moderate
151
Severe
11
Fatal
Hillary Ronen
Supervisior – District 9
01/08/2017 – 2025
Total Injuries
3,692
Injury Every
18.99 hours
2,446
Mild
940
Moderate
271
Severe
35
Fatal
Shamann Walton
Supervisior – District 10
01/08/2019 – 2027
Total Injuries
2,346
Injury Every
1.25 days
1,651
Mild
470
Moderate
198
Severe
27
Fatal
Ahsha Safaí
Supervisior – District 11
01/08/2017 – 2025
Total Injuries
2,079
Injury Every
1.41 days
1,464
Mild
456
Moderate
143
Severe
16
Fatal
Joel Engardio
Supervisior – District 4
01/08/2023 – 2027
Total Injuries
230
Injury Every
6.35 days
146
Mild
70
Moderate
13
Severe
1
Fatal
Demographics

Gender

Male
Female
Unknown

Age

Under 18
18-40
40-65
Over 65
Transit Mode & Time of Day

Transit Mode

Pedestrians
Bicyclists
Scooterists
Motorcyclists
Vehicle Passengers

Time of Day

12AM-6AM
6AM-12PM
12PM-6PM
6pm-12AM
Sources

This project took over two months to research, design and assemble. The following resources guided our research and we thank the authors for their work.