I wouldn’t be doing my Civic Duty if I didn’t link to yet another Municide.
This time the culprit was an articulated standard coach (non-trolleybus) 71-Haight/Noriega heading inbound on Market at 6th. A 77 year old female pedestrian was struck and later died at SF General.
6th and Market is a zoo of an intersection at best, made worse by Tenderloin-style pedestrians who seem to get personal satisfaction by running in front of traffic.
However, at this point in the route, the 71-Haight/Noriega has a purely straight trajectory — a path easy for both the driver and daredevil pedestrians to anticipate. Thanks to the mid-lane bus-stop islands the busses don’t even have to pull into a standard Muni bus stop. Given this simple trajectory, this vehicle should not have been turning, leaving little obvious clues as to how it managed to smush the elderly lady.
More data would be nice to enable the community to put pressure on Muni to prevent further similar incidents. Unfortunately, more data we will not have.
kfarr 