San Francisco’s Dangerous Secret
The City of San Francisco is a beautiful and unique city filed with great diversity and a storied history. But amongst its many wonderful attributes The City also holds a deadly secret. San Francisco is one of the most dangerous cities in America for pedestrians. The elderly are especially at risk.
Over the last 10 years San Francisco remains rated as the most dangerous county for pedestrians out of 58 counties in California. Michael Radetsky from the San Francisco Department of Public Health said it best in a presentation on pedestrian safety to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on February 14, 2008:
“we have been working with community agencies and activists a to try to to help communities do what they can to improve pedestrian safety which has been an issue in San Francisco for a long time for at least the last 10 years that I know of – personally – the State Office of Traffic Safety has rated San Francisco as # 1, or I guess # 48th, however you want to think about it, as having the largest problem in its size and city class for pedestrian injuries and fatalities and for elder pedestrian injuries and fatalities…”
[Michael Radetsky, February 14, 2008]
Time and again pedestrians, many of them elderly, have met their fate just trying to walk across a city street in San Francisco. The number of deaths and severe injuries are quite astonishing. Every year in San Francisco more than a thousand people are run down by errant drivers many of whom do not survive to tell their story.