San Francisco Personal Injury Lawyer

Forty-three people died in traffic on San Francisco’s streets in 2024, a 65% increase over the year before and the highest number since 2005, according to the city’s Vision Zero report (SFDPH 2024 report). Every injury claim in the city depends on a handful of institutions: the hospital that treated you, the agency that wrote the report, the transit operator and the court. This directory, prepared by a San Francisco personal injury lawyer for people who have just been hurt, lists those places and explains why each one matters to your case.

At a glance — San Francisco, 2023–2024

• No large California city did worse in 2023 on four OTS measures: 648 people on foot, 124 walkers over 64, 397 cyclists and 406 motorcycle riders hurt or killed (OTS 2023)
• 2,954 non-fatal injury collisions in 2024, 642 of them involving a pedestrian (SFMTA crash report)
• 24 of the 43 people killed in 2024 were pedestrians, and 12 were 65 or older

Six steps to take right away

1. Get the report number from the responding agency, SFPD or the CHP, before anything else; every later record is filed under it.
2. Ask Zuckerberg San Francisco General, or whichever hospital treated you, for the complete record, including the ambulance report.
3. Look up your crash location in the intersection table below and on the High Injury Network map.
4. If a Muni vehicle, a BART train, a Caltrain crossing or a state highway such as 19th Avenue was involved, set yourself a deadline five months out for the government claim.
5. Photograph the scene again within a week. The city installs quick-build posts and fresh paint quickly, and the condition before those changes is what matters.
6. Save the Muni, taxi and rideshare charges for every trip to a doctor. Many injured people in the city do not drive, and those costs add up.

Zuckerberg San Francisco General

The city’s own data shows why that first chart carries so much weight. Deaths per 1,000 injury crashes rose to 9.4 in 2020–2024 from 6.6 in 2015–2019, a 42% increase in severity. Injuries are becoming more serious, so claims increasingly involve surgery, longer recoveries and disputes over future care.

SFPD, the CHP and Vision Zero SF

For a claim, the most useful map is the High Injury Network. It covers 12% of city streets, about 128 miles, yet accounts for more than 68% of severe and fatal injuries, and nearly half of 2024’s deaths occurred on it.

Intersections with the most injury crashes

The SFMTA’s 2023–2024 crash report ranked locations by the number of injury collisions over five years. Seven of every ten injury collisions in the city happen at intersections.

Two of these locations are on a state highway. If a design problem on 19th Avenue or Park Presidio contributed to your crash, the responsible public entity may be the State of California rather than the city, and a written claim is generally due within six months (Gov. Code §911.2).

The report also identifies the causes of injury crashes from 2020 to 2024: unsafe speed in 18%, failure to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks in 10%, and red-light running and unsafe lane changes in 9% each. These are the same violations that decide fault in most claims.

Hit-and-runs, West Portal and the 2026 figures

My crash was on a street the city has mapped as dangerous. Does that help?

The map alone does not decide who was at fault. What it adds is proof that the danger was already documented, which justifies asking the city for signal timing, complaint logs and past work orders at that location.

Nobody stayed at the scene. Who pays me?

In 2024, five people died in crashes where the driver fled, four of them pedestrians; the year before, the state recorded 493 hit-and-run injury crashes in the city. Your own household’s uninsured motorist coverage usually pays in this situation, but only if two conditions in the Insurance Code are met: the fleeing car actually touched you or your vehicle, and SFPD or the CHP heard about the crash within 24 hours (Ins. Code §11580.2).

Is 2026 any better?

Preliminary figures show 14 Vision Zero traffic deaths from January through June 2026, 11 of them pedestrians (SFDPH June 2026 memo). Pedestrians remain the most vulnerable group.

Why does the West Portal crash matter to other cases?

On March 16, 2024, a speeding SUV struck a bus shelter at Ulloa Street and Lenox Way, killing four pedestrians, two of them children. Crashes like that one drive the city’s safety changes. For families, the case also showed how one speeding driver can injure several people at once, which raises the question of whether a single policy’s limits can cover everyone. Underinsured motorist coverage on each victim’s own policy often has to fill the gap.

Muni, BART and Caltrain claims

Passengers hurt in a sudden stop, riders struck at a boarding island and drivers hit by a bus all face the shorter deadline. Keep your Clipper card history or ticket, and photograph the vehicle number.

Tip: Muni operators file incident reports after injuries on board and after collisions. Request that report by vehicle and run number, along with any on-board video. For a fall on a Muni bus or a collision with one, see our bus accident page.

Scooters, motorcycles and large vehicles

Some of the fastest-changing figures in the city’s report involve road users who are not in cars:

• Stand-up devices such as e-scooters: injury crashes rose from 142 in 2015–2019 to 887 in 2020–2024, about 6% of all injury crashes. Scooter riders, and the people on foot they collide with, are the subject of our e-scooter accident page.
• Motorcyclists: fatal crashes rose 115%, from 13 to 28, over the same periods.
• Large vehicles: four of the 2024 deaths (9%) involved a truck or van over 8,000 pounds, including a pedestrian killed by a tour bus. Commercial vehicles bring commercial insurance and company records into a claim.

Deadlines and the Civic Center Courthouse

Most cases never reach that courthouse. The deadlines matter from the first day all the same, because an insurer has no reason to pay someone who has let a deadline pass.

Sources

1. 2024 fatality report — SFDPH
2. OTS rankings, 2023 — OTS
3. Crashes 2023–2024 — SFMTA
4. ZSFG — Wikipedia
5. Fatality protocol — Vision Zero SF
6. Office locations — CHP
7. Maps and data — Vision Zero SF
8. Gov. Code §911.2 — Legislature
9. Safe streets progress — SFMTA
10. BART — BART
11. Caltrain — Caltrain
12. Civil Division — SF Courts
13. CCP §335.1 — Legislature
14. CACI 405 — Justia
15. Ins. Code §11580.2 — Legislature
16. June 2026 memo — SFDPH

The directory above is general information about San Francisco institutions and California rules, not legal advice on your claim.

How we use these records

We represent pedestrians, cyclists, Muni passengers, scooter riders and people hurt in car crashes in San Francisco, and we also handle falls on unsafe property, dog bites and wrongful death claims in the city. When a collision happens on the High Injury Network, we build the case around the SFMTA crash history and Vision Zero records for that intersection.

Each table on this page becomes a records request in a real case: the trauma file from Zuckerberg San Francisco General, the SFPD or CHP report, the crash history at your intersection, Muni or BART incident records, and every insurance policy that might pay. When Muni, BART or a state highway such as 19th Avenue is part of the story, the claim to that agency is the first document we draft. Whether you need a San Francisco car accident lawyer or help with a pedestrian case, a consultation with the Law Offices of Jacob Emrani is free, and we are paid only if we recover money for you. A representative can come to you, including at the hospital. Our intake line is (888) 952-2952, and the case evaluator accepts a written account at any hour. En español: calljacob.com/es.