San Francisco, CA Personal Injury Blog

Recently, eight people were injured in a severe collision involving two drunk drivers.

The San Francisco car accident occurred just past midnight on a recent Monday morning, when a van carrying two occupants failed to stop for a red light at the intersection of 10th and Howard and crashed into a sedan carrying six people. All eight suffered injuries and at least two were in critical condition. The sedan's passengers had to be extricated from the vehicle using the Jaws of Life. Both drivers were arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.

California Drunk Driver Accidents

California drunk driver accidents are far too common. Every year, over 30,000 Californians are killed or injured in alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents. Perhaps the most tragic thing about these accidents is the fact that nearly all of them could have been prevented if the drunk driver had been responsible enough not to get behind the wheel.

Inexperience and immaturity often prove to be a lethal combination for teens, especially when they get behind the wheel. Car accidents are the leading cause of death among teens, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. In California alone, 593 people died in 2008 in accidents involving teen drivers, according to California's Department of Motor Vehicles.

To ease the transition and save lives, many states have turned to some form of graduated driver licensing. This multi-step approach leads drivers from a closely supervised permit stage to full privileges - after successfully meeting all state-mandated restrictions regarding supervised hours behind the wheel, night driving, cell phone use and passengers on board.

One of the strictest driving programs is found in California, which adopted graduated licensing in 1998 and strengthened its requirements in 2006. To achieve an unrestricted license, California teens must pass written and driving tests and a one-year provisional stage that bans late-night driving and passengers under age 20 without adult supervision. Avoiding suspensions and probation during the provisional stage allows teens to get a full license.

Now, however, examination of teen crash data is raising new questions on the effectiveness of this graduated approach, according to LATimes.com. The question is, are graduated licensing programs merely postponing accidents to the late-teen years? An examination of more than 131,000 fatal crashes involving teen drivers indicates that the answer is yes.

Since video surveillance cameras were installed in the Muni system last year, bus accidents have been cut in half, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

The cameras are designed to activate when a bus slams on the brakes or accelerates quickly - indicators that the driver may be handling the vehicle improperly. Despite this, Muni accidents are unfortunately still far from uncommon around San Francisco, including accidents that cause serious injuries and sometimes even death.

Recent Muni Accidents

One such accident occurred in mid-September when a bike rider was hit by an 8X-Bayshore Express as she rode home from work. The cyclist was struck by the bus while trying to avoid a double-parked car as she went through the intersection of Columbus Avenue and Broadway. As she did this, she fell off of her bike and it was reported that the bus ran over her arm and drove away. The victim, whose arm was crushed in the accident, plans to sue the city for her injuries.

A recent accident at a construction site in San Francisco's Dogpatch neighborhood, which seriously injured three workers, illustrates the potential dangers facing construction workers today.

According to Battalion Chief Charles Crane, at the time of the accident workers were pouring concrete on the roof of a building when their support structure failed, and caused the three workers to fall three stories down a stairwell. When firefighters arrived, they discovered the three workers covered in unhardened concrete.

There is currently an investigation as to the cause of the collapse, but a spokeswoman for the California Division of Occupational Health and Safety stated the Cal/Osha crews had twice visited the construction site in the last six months and didn't notice any problems.

Unfortunately, the one thing this accident shows is that serious injury can occur on construction sites even if they are monitored by safety agencies.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), dogs bite 4.7 million Americans each year. One in five victims requires medical attention for dog-bite injuries. Some may require extensive reconstructive surgery or nerve-damage repair. Still, other dog attacks are fatal. So far in 2011, more than 11 dog attack-related deaths have occurred, and many of the victims have been small children.

In 2000, the health-care and prevention watchdog completed a 15-year study on the issue. For the 239 deaths reported from 1979-1994, the CDC found that pit-bull-type dogs are linked to the most human fatalities. In more recent years (2006-2008), this popular, and often most abused, breed accounted for 59 percent of the fatal dog attacks on humans.

An 18-year-old woman was in court earlier this week for vehicular manslaughter charges resulting from a fatal pedestrian accident occurring late last year.

The car accident took place in Dec. 2010, when the young woman was allegedly texting and speeding while driving her Honda through an intersection near Santa Rosa. The distracted teen driver struck a two-year-old toddler and her mother. The mom was able to survive the accident after spending more than four months in the hospital. Tragically, the child died.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), over 600 pedalcyclists were killed and another 51,000 were injured on American roads in 2009. Cyclist deaths accounted for 2 percent of all motor vehicle traffic fatalities in the nation and also accounted for 2 percent of all the people injured in traffic crashes that same year. Most (70 percent) of these bicycle accidents occurred in urban areas; however, not enough Californians recognize that suburban areas, such as Contra Costa County, are also dangerous places for cyclists.

Contra Costa County, home to almost one million people, is considered part of the San Francisco metropolitan area. The county has almost 250 miles of bike lanes; however, the open roads are not necessarily a safe haven for county cyclists. According to California Highway Patrol (CHP) data reviewed by the area non-profit, The Bay Citizen, 23 bicyclists lost their lives on county roads from 2005 to 2009. During this same period, only nine cyclists were killed on the crowded urban streets of San Francisco.

The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) recently released a preliminary report on motorcyclist traffic fatalities by State. California continued its reputation as a dangerous place for bikers, as data showed it to have the third highest amount of motorcycle-crash deaths in the country for the first half of 2010 - only Florida and Texas had more.

The Bay Area has a particularly high propensity for motorcycle accidents, as a large number of bikers are on the roads battling traffic congestion, curvy coastal roads and motorists that fail to "see" motorcycles before turning into traffic. Few places offer a ride as scenic as the San Francisco Area, but few places present as much danger, either. Thankfully, the GHSA reported some good news to Bay bikers, too.