{"id":273321,"date":"2026-04-17T23:17:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T23:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/273321\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T23:17:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T23:17:14","slug":"driver-runs-red-hits-cyclist-speeds-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/273321\/","title":{"rendered":"Driver Runs Red, Hits Cyclist, Speeds Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

A hit-and-run motorist ran a red light and smashed into a cyclist at 8th and Mission on Wednesday. Another cyclist captured the incident from a helmet camera and posted the video on Reddit, which was later picked up by KRON4<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A frame taken from the KRON4 story<\/a> about the incident.<\/p>\n

The crash happened at the end of a protected bike lane that was installed as part of SFMTA\u2019s 7th and 8th Avenue Safety project<\/a>. However, the intersection is not protected, making this type of crash likely.<\/p>\n

In this case, thankfully, the cyclist did not appear to be badly hurt, but that was a matter of quick reactions and blind chance. Had the bicyclist been a half-pedal stroke farther along, it could easily have been severe or fatal.<\/p>\n

Further description of the incident via Reddit<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As the Mercedes reaches the corner of 8th and Mission streets, he makes an illegal right turn against the light \u2014 right into the path of a cyclist riding lawfully in the bike lane.<\/p>\n

And:<\/p>\n

In the video<\/a> the cyclist can be seen skidding on his brakes as he attempts to avoid colliding with the car. The driver of the Mercedes, who has veered out of his lane onto the inside of the bike path, ignores the [collision with the] cyclist and speeds off down the road without stopping.<\/p>\n

District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey commented about the incident on social media:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are experiencing an epidemic of hit-and-run collisions here in San Francisco \u2013 at least three pedestrian deaths in 2026 so far were caused by hit-and-runs, including one just this week on South Van Ness where a pedestrian was killed on the sidewalk,\u201d wrote the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition\u2019s Christopher White, in an email to Streetsblog. \u201cWe need immediate interventions to curb reckless drivers, like expanded automated speed camera and red light camera coverage along the High Injury network, along with more ambitiously implementing life-saving traffic calming measures already laid out in the Biking and Rolling Plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A screen cap of the driver\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

Fair enough, and we definitely need more red light and speed cameras, but in this case, it\u2019s unclear how red-light cameras or other soft enforcement would have helped in an immediate sense. As is clear in the lead photo and the video, the red arrow for the driver was clearly illuminated. This driver just chose to ignore the law. The problem with red lights, signs, and fines is that they still ultimately depend on a driver\u2019s voluntary compliance; there\u2019s nothing to force the driver to be safe. On the other hand, a protected intersection with a concrete, protected island at the corner would force drivers to take the turn slowly or risk damaging their car. Ideally, that corner island would also have a cast-iron bell or bollard to physically stop the car if the driver is egregious.<\/p>\n

\"\"Traffic bells in London protecting a sidewalk corner from unsafe motorists. Photo: Furnitubes<\/p>\n

\u201cA lack of a protected intersection enables something like this to happen,\u201d agreed Streets Forward\u2019s Luke Bornheimer. \u201cThis is exactly why protected intersections exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bornheimer also points out that the city needs to consider close calls such as this one as seriously as it does fatal crashes, because it indicates a dangerous condition that has to be corrected. Streetsblog reached out to several staffers at SFMTA for comment. The agency did not respond.<\/p>\n

\"\"Another comment from the District 6 Supervisor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no excuse for the city not installing protected intersections when they\u2019re doing protected bike lanes,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\"\"A motorist taking the corner at West and MacArthur in Oakland at a protected intersection. Photo: Streetsblog\/Rudick<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not as if protected intersections are unfamiliar to SFMTA. There are now many in the Bay Area, such as the one pictured above in Oakland. Moreover, one of the first ones in the Bay Area was built in San Francisco back in 2016<\/a>, at 9th and Division. More have been built since. But for reasons that remain unclear, SFMTA doesn\u2019t seem to use them as the default. They must do so if they want to make the city safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoad infrastructure also plays an important role in safer streets,\u201d added Dorsey. \u201cI live on this block and have personally experienced dangerous conditions here. I always welcome opportunities to improve our street design.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A hit-and-run motorist ran a red light and smashed into a cyclist at 8th and Mission on Wednesday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[109921,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-273321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-promoted","9":"tag-san-francisco","10":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","11":"tag-san-francisco-news","12":"tag-sf","13":"tag-sf-headlines","14":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}