PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 27, 2025
CONTACT: Jodie Medeiros, Executive Director, Walk SF, jodie@walksf.org, 415.596.1580; Marta Lindsey, Communications Director, Walk SF, marta@walksf.org, 617.833.7654
Pedestrian killed in hit-and-run on Ocean Avenue
Tenth senior pedestrian death this year
San Francisco, Calif. – Walk SF learned from the San Francisco Police Department that a pedestrian was fatally hit by a driver at 6:40PM on Sunday, October 26, at the intersection of Ocean Avenue and Ashton Avenue in the Ingleside neighborhood. The driver fled the scene. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the victim was a senior. No additional information is available at this time.
“We are heartbroken to learn of this loss of life. Our community is holding the victim and their loved ones in our hearts,” said Jodie Medeiros, executive director for Walk San Francisco.
“We can measure our city’s safety by how safe our kids and seniors are,” said Medeiros. “By this measure, it’s clear San Francisco isn’t doing nearly enough when it comes to traffic safety. We all deserve to be safe crossing the street in our city.”
Walk San Francisco (Walk SF) and San Francisco Bay Area Families for Safe Streets (Families for Safe Streets) are here to support the friends and loved ones of the victim however possible. Resources are available at walksf.org/fss.
This is the second senior pedestrian fatality on Ocean Avenue this year. An 83-year-old pedestrian was hit by a driver near the intersection of Ocean and Lee Avenues on August 2, 2025, and succumbed to their injuries.
Ocean Avenue is on the city’s 2022 “high-injury network” map: the 12% of streets where 68% of traffic crashes occur. The section of Ocean Avenue where the crash occurred is 60-feet-wide with four vehicle travel lanes. Many drivers feel comfortable speeding on Ocean Avenue, which increases the chances and severity of traffic crashes. There have been six other fatal crashes along Ocean Avenue since the beginning of 2016.
This is the 14th pedestrian death in San Francisco so far this year, and the 10th senior pedestrian death.
The first pedestrian death in San Francisco in 2025 was 81-year-old Charles Bollinger, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver on January 4, 2025 at the intersection of Silver Avenue and Colby Street. The second was a 77-year-old woman who was hit by a driver on January 21, 2025 at the intersection of Carter Street and Geneva Avenue and passed on January 28, 2025. The third was a 77-year-old woman who was hit by a driver on March 14, 2025 at the intersection of Geary Boulevard and 39th Avenue and passed on March 27, 2025. The fourth was 86-year-old Mary Naito, who was struck by a hit-and-run driver on April 21, 2025, at the intersection of Fillmore Street and McAllister Street succumbed to her injuries on April 25, 2025. The fifth was 74-year-old Annabella “Bella” Gabriel Baquera, who was fatally hit by a driver on May 1, 2025, at the intersection of 7th Street and Howard Street. The sixth was a 47-year-old pedestrian who was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver on May 12, 2025 at the intersection of Bayshore Boulevard and Jerrold Avenue. The seventh was a pedestrian who was fatally hit by a driver on May 27, 2025 at the intersection of 10th Street and Folsom Street. The eighth was a 67-year-old pedestrian who was fatally hit by a driver on June 2, 2025, at the intersection of Geary Boulevard and 2nd Avenue. The ninth was 77-year-old Peter Rudolph who was hit and killed while crossing Market Street at 6th Street by a person riding an electric scooter. The tenth was a pedestrian who was fatally hit by a driver at Mission Street and Santa Rosa Avenue on July 23, 2025. The 11th was an 83-year-old pedestrian who was hit near the intersection of Ocean and Lee Avenues on August 2, 2025, and succumbed to their injuries. The 12th pedestrian death was a 78-year-old person hit on August 10 while crossing 6th Street at Howard Street. The 13th was 30-year-old Binod Budhathoki, who was fatally hit by a hit-and-run driver on Saturday, October 4, while crossing Cortland Avenue at Anderson Street.
24 people were killed while walking in San Francisco in 2024, the highest number since 2007. A total of 42 people were killed in traffic crashes in San Francisco in 2024, the highest number in a decade. Around 500 people are severely injured in traffic crashes each year in San Francisco.
“No one should lose their life simply crossing the street,” said Medeiros. “It’s more dangerous than ever to be a pedestrian. Vehicles are getting bigger, heavier, and more powerful, and reckless driving is at an all-time high. The number of hit-and-runs happening is deeply disturbing.”
Speeding is the #1 cause of severe and fatal crashes in San Francisco. While the City’s new speed camera program is dramatically changing driver behavior around cameras, it’s also showing how prevalent dangerous speeding is. Half of speed camera citations issued in August were for drivers going 16-20MPH or more over the speed limit (read more).
One of the speed camera locations is on Ocean Avenue, between Frida Kahlo Way and Howth St, around 0.7 miles from the crash location. Data from the speed camera on Ocean Avenue shows significant speeding issues, with 1,735 citations or warnings issued in August to drivers going 11MPH or more over the speed limit.
Doubling a car’s speed quadruples its kinetic energy, making the stakes increasingly high above 25 MPH. By 40 MPH, about 75% of pedestrians will suffer a life-threatening injury or die if hit.
“While we don’t yet know if the driver was speeding, we know speeding is the #1 cause of severe and fatal traffic crashes in San Francisco,” said Medeiros. “It’s why we need every possible solution to reducing speeding, and why City leaders must move quickly to enact the new Street Safety Act.”
The Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the Street Safety Act on September 16 (read more). The Street Safety Act recommits our city to ending severe and fatal crashes, gets agencies to collaborate and work more efficiently, and focuses on bringing the most effective solutions to scale including to reducing dangerous speeding in more ways. This includes:
- Reforming the Residential Traffic Calming Program so it takes a proactive, neighborhood-scale approach to adding speed humps, tables, and more to bring down speeds on smaller streets.
- Planning how to sufficiently redesign all high-injury streets with solutions including turn calming, signal timing, and lane reductions to better design streets that keep drivers going at safe speeds.
- Further embracing automated enforcement.
- Requiring the SFPD to develop a traffic enforcement plan that complements the speed camera program.
Walk SF is calling on Mayor Daniel Lurie and agency leaders to work quickly to adopt detailed plans and directives with deadlines, plus regular interagency meetings, to implement what’s in the Street Safety Act.
“The new Street Safety Act is the blueprint for our City to make all of us safer getting around,” said Medeiros. “But City leaders have to deliver on it.”
Walk SF and Families for Safe Streets will hold World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims on Sunday, November 16 at 5:00pm outside of City Hall. At the event, a temporary memorial is built on the steps of City Hall with a pair of white shoes for each person who has died in a traffic crash since 2014 in San Francisco including the victims in 2025. Learn more at walksf.org/wdr.
“Many people don’t realize how often traffic crashes are happening, and how many lives are affected,” said Medeiros. “Each year, around 40 people die and more than 500 people are severely injured in crashes on San Francisco streets. World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims is a place to honor the lives lost and shine a needed light on the urgent need for change. It breaks my heart that another name will now be on the steps of City Hall next month.”
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Walk San Francisco (‘Walk SF’) advocates on behalf of all pedestrians in San Francisco. Since its founding in 1998, Walk SF has successfully pushed for solutions to design and enforce streets where people of all ages and abilities are safe walking. Learn more.
San Francisco Bay Area Families for Safe Streets is a group of people who have been directly affected by traffic crashes, including crash survivors and people whose loved ones have been killed or injured in traffic crashes. Learn more.