Susan Francis and her husband had just finished their Valentine’s dinner around 9:30pm on Tuesday night when they heard tires screeching followed by a loud crash outside their home.
The cause? A Dodge had slammed into the corner of their Balboa Street house.
“My husband right away said ‘call 911’ so I did that and then when I came out here other people were already out here pulling the man out of the car,” Francis told ABC 7 News.
Remarkably, Francis says they didn’t feel the home shake when the car crashed into it. The driver was described as dazed and disoriented when he was taken from the vehicle. He was later taken to a hospital.
The impact occurred near the home’s electrical box so PG&E was quickly on scene to turn off the power and gas for the night.
43rd and Balboa is known by neighbors for being a tricky intersection. A few months ago, a car crashed into a laundromat just across the street from the Francis’ house. It’s still boarded up from the incident.
UPDATE: CBS5 reports that the driver, Jovanni Ramirez, 23 was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.
Sarah B.
I live two blocks away and I’d like to hear from someone regarding why they consider this intersection ‘tricky’. It’s a 4-way stop, just like 100 others within a quarter mile of this one.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing! 4-way stops are the best, unless the drivers are morons who run stop signs (this happens waaay too often) or drunk. Or in this case “dazed.”
This intersection is in the Richmond district, not the Sunset. It’s also not ‘tricky’.
Hmm. I wonder what is so tricky about a 4-way stop controlled intersection in the grid of the Richmond District.
Apparently News 7, doesn’t get over to the west side of SF too often, geesh Sunset… and all intersections are dangerous when you drive way too fast and don’t stop at stop signs.
Jack in the box wrappers were spotted around the crash site
it’s also not a PT Cruiser but what appears to be a Dodge Caliber. reporters can’t read auto badges?
Any intersection is made trickier when alcohol is involved. This is apparently a DUI. Thankfully, nobody was hurt.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/02/15/man-arrested-for-dui-after-crashing-into-san-francisco-home/
Thanks for the link, Bob. I’ve updated the post.
This is the second time this has happened in the neighborhood within a week. Last Friday around noon, a car took out a garage on the NW corner of 38th Ave & Balboa. In that case, I believe it was the result of someone mistaking the intersection for a 4-way stop and hitting the car traveling Balboa whose driver then lost control.
So Juli, did a car rear end someone that stopped at the intersection or did they think they had the right of way on the avenue because it was at a presumed 4-way stop?
I know that when I take Balboa (which I rarely do west, because of the stop signs), I tend to slow down through intersections even if I have the right of way. I do not trust that some one is truly going to stop at a stop sign, or that they can see me at some intersections because of the cars that are parked all the way up to the intersection.
I live across the street from where both these accidents took place and I happened to see both of them. The first one was actually an elderly man who plowed (rather slowly) into a parked car which then slammed into Sparkles laundry. It had little to do with the intersection. The second accident, let’s call it the V-Day crash, was due to a drunk young man. The problem was not a 4 way intersection.
The problem with our streets out here is that many people who drive them at night are going to the beach to party. We are a magnet for drunks who think they are in the middle of the boonies and can get away with anything. One way to counter this would be lay down some speed bumps and add more patrols. I see people (and who knows who is intoxicated or not) blast through these stops signs day and night and there is no accountability or reason to go slow.
Solution: Cameras at 4-way, 4-stop intersections. If the car doesn’t come to a *complete* stop, as prescribed by law, the owner of the vehicle gets a ticket in the mail, for $300. Just watch driving behaviors start to change after 200-300 of those tickets are generated.
Oh, and I wonder how long it will take Jovanni Ramirez to be back on the streets. 10-1 this loser doesn’t have car insurance. These are times when I wish I was a judge. Ramirez would not be back on the road for 5 years, minimum. And, he would be required to pay for every penny of the damage from his own pocket, up to and including garnish of wages for as long as it takes. Unemployed? Put him to work in a labor camp at minimum wage. Also, if he was a patron of a local watering hole, the name of that place should be listed.
We need to start finding out which ones of these local bars care more about their booze sales than the safety of pedestrians (not to mention their own customers) as they let them order up pitcher after pitcher of beer, or whole bottles of hard stuff.
Last, maybe Mr. Mar can introduce legislation that introduces sobriety machinery to *every* establishment in our city that serves booze. After the 2nd drink, ALL patrons who want more would have to take a quick sobriety test (via a quick measurement device; these devices would be compulsory, and purchased by the bars as a cost of doing business). If the patron is at or near the blood alcohol limit, they don’t get any more.
When are we going to start taking proactive steps to protect innocent citizens from irresponsible citizens and the most overly greedy booze-dispensing establishments? Oh, yeah, the booze meters should be networked to a police database, with the patron’s DL # attached, to make sure the bars are in compliance. Anyone out of compliance 3x *loses their liquor license*.
Gee wilickers, ya’ll! I have a swell idea! Why don’t we ban alcohol altogether?
It is a person’s responsibility to not drink and drive. Bars cannot and should not be responsible for our individual decisions. If I want to go to a bar (without driving) and get drunk (beyond the pathetic blood alcohol limit FOR DRIVING, which is below what it takes for most people to get drunk), it is my choice to do so because we live in a free country and not in a police state. Though if some people here have their way, that would change.
You have to accept that morons will do moronic things of their own accord and THEY should be held responsible, no one else. And furthermore, you need to accept that throwing more goverment, more regulations, and more laws at a problem doesn’t make it better, it simply strips everyone else of their freedoms.
That said, Phil’s knee-jerk zeal is terrifying.
@Tanya
I second that.
Tanya, this is Phil’s normal reaction to everything, and kudos to your commentary.
Um… Phil, your comment reeks a little of racism. Not sure why you think this guy is uninsured or unemployed. The idea of forcing someone into a labor camp and then taking their “wages” sounds a tad like fascism.
We just need to focus on the facts and reasonable solutions. We’ve had a wide variety of accidents in our hood that could be curbed (pardon the pun) if we had speed bumps. One person (or type of person) is not the villain. I see soccer moms speeding, I see business commuters blowing stop signs, I see elderly women passing cars looking for parking. I see young kids who are out and about enjoying the beach, 40s and Js. We can’t throw everyone into labor camps. We can afford speed bumps. We can all afford to drive slower.
I’m beginning to think that Phil is actually James Franco’s latest project.
@mel: The accident at 38th Ave & Balboa was a result of someone thinking they had the right of way from the avenue. I only heard the crash and saw the aftermath. I heard from others on scene that it was a hit-and-run. I’m not sure how the car driving north on the avenue would have hit the car traveling west on Balboa with the necessary speed to knock them into a building if it had actually come to a full and complete stop at the stop sign as it should have.
Thanks Juli!
Ramirez is employed and is a student. He has insurance which will cover all of the damage. He is not a “loser” and he was also not arrested. He was unconscious at the scene, not “dazed”. Mistakes happen and this is a horrible one, but thankfully no one was hurt and he is dealing with the consequences. You all have a right to your opinions but you only know of a few hours in his 23 year existence and I don’t think you should judge somebody off of that.
Jane: “Ramirez is employed and is a student. He has insurance which will cover all of the damage. He is not a “loser” and he was also not arrested. He was unconscious at the scene, not “dazed”. Mistakes happen and this is a horrible one, but thankfully no one was hurt and he is dealing with the consequences. You all have a right to your opinions but you only know of a few hours in his 23 year existence and I don’t think you should judge somebody off of that.’
****
Let’s see what his blood alcohol was; if he was drunk I hope he loses his license for two years, minimum. If he was driving unsafely, he should be responsible for paying back damages. If it was “just one of those things”, then I hope he’s alright.
As far as the bars go, someone up top suggested that it’s “government intrusion” to suggest that bar owners are at fault. Hey folks – guess what? Alcohol is a *controlled substance*; it’s a *drug*, and the vendors of those drugs maintain a special responsibility to their community to see to it that their patrons do not abuse the drug.
If you disagree with that; if you disagree with the principle that any irresponsible person (criminal, really) who gets drunk and drives should be responsible for “his or her own behavior”, you are only partially right, in this case.
I was a bartender many years ago; I would never have given someone who was clearly drunk, another drink. Anyone who does that is *complicit* in the harm that their customer does if s/he drives drunk and hurts someone, or destroys property.
You may not like that idea, but I think you’re going to find over time that your concept of “personal responsibility” is a limited one (reminds me of the hapless libertarian and/or anarchist philosophies). Sorry folks, we live in communities, and we are – like it or not – responsible for a lot more than just “ourselves”. Eventually, really good universal surveillance tools will take drunken clowns off the road before they get in their cars. Wanna bet that happens within the next decade?
Phil, you clearly live in a community of your own design and understanding. My life will not be complete until I see your name on the mayoral ballot for the city of San Francisco, since you seem to have this all figured out. You appear to have a theory on reducing the crime rate to zero by recording law-abiding citizens’ every action. I can’t wait for this plan to come to fruition. Feel free to explain in the comments below…:
1. How you’ll pay for this. And not just the equipment, but the personnel to run it. Keep in mind that once you do reduce the crime rate to zero, parking ticket revenue will cease to exist. Factor that into your budget and revenue forecast. Please also factor in the cost of any precogs you have in your garage.
2. How you will get we ‘mericans to agree that this is a good idea, spying on the 99.9% to somehow prevent the .1% from being bad. We have a grand tradition of freedom and privacy in this country, so I would be interested in reading the manifesto you’ll publish to convince us we have it all wrong. Starting a cult is the only way I can imagine this will happen. If you have other ideas I’d like to read about them.
3. How you plan on expanding the Internet to handle the influx of hilarious car and bicycle crash videos that this system will generate. As far as I can tell, the cameras they have all over the UK are only good for this.
But seriously, it’s well understood in most technical communities that cameras alone do not reduce crime. In fact, nobody has done a study that has concluded it has any effect on violent crime. The only two places it is effective at all is property crime and helping to solve crimes after the fact.
It would be nice to know exactly what you think simply installing cameras all over the place will fix and why your opinion differs than municipalities that have already done this, not to mention major studies by whole governments and higher learning institutions. If you have some other insight that these studies don’t, let’s hear it.