Mayor Lee Calls Two Crashes That Killed Cyclists 'Avoidable Tragedies'
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Mayor Ed Lee spoke out Thursday about safety on San Francisco streets, a day after cyclists were killed in two fatal hit-and-run crashes.
The mayor vowed to push on with the city's efforts to eliminate traffic deaths.
Wednesday's first fatal collision happened in Golden Gate Park at 30th Avenue and JFK Drive at around 6 p.m.
Police said a man driving a stolen white Honda was trying to pass another car and smashed into a woman in her 40s riding a bike.
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Timmory Johnson and her boyfriend, who were in the park at the time, heard the impact and saw the aftermath.
"I look and I see the woman cyclist who had just passed us on the road fly up," she said. "I saw her bike fly the opposite way. And then the car came around…hesitated for just a very brief second and kept going. The windshield was just completely caved in -- just destroyed. You couldn't miss it."
The woman was taken away in an ambulance, but later died of her injuries. The car was found a short time later abandoned on equestrian way.
The hit-and-run driver is still on the loose.
As police were still at that scene, a second fatal crash happened in SoMa near Seventh and Howard streets at around 8:30 p.m.
Police said the driver ran a red light before hitting a woman in her 20s riding a bicycle.
The driver was arrested for vehicular manslaughter and felony hit and run. On Thursday afternoon, he was identified as Farrukh Mushtaq, a 32 year-old male San Francisco resident.
Mushtaq was booked into San Francisco County Jail on the charges of felony hit and run and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. Police said impairment does not appear to be a factor in this case.
On Thursday, the Mayor and other officials addressed the two fatal accidents.
"These are illegal, irresponsible, outrageous acts that we have to condemn," said Lee. "These are totally avoidable tragedies."
"Speed was involved in each of these incidents, so to the public, I ask that everyone please slow it down," said SFPD Commander Robert O'Sullivan.
The city is in the middle of what it calls Vision Zero, a plan working towards prevent all pedestrian and bicycle traffic fatalities.
Officials have been re-engineering streets and re-timing lights in an effort to make things safer, but each year 30 people die on city streets.
"We are no longer accepting as fact that people need to die in the streets of San Francisco as they're trying to get around town," said Ed Reiskin of SFMTA.
The city is also looking into speed enforcement-cameras. Right now, California law prohibits them, but transportation officials are lobbying lawmakers to change that.