Around 3:45am on Thursday morning, a suspected drunk driver careened off the slick street and jumped the curb in front of the Cliff House, taking out a post, a planter and a bit of the restaurant’s facade.
The car also crashed into a parked red pickup and pushed it up on the sidewalk. Beer bottles were littered all over the sidewalk near the crashed car, and witnesses say the driver appeared “extremely drunk”.
The driver of the BMW SUV was taken away in an ambulance with what looked like only a cut to the hand, according to KTVU News. No one else was injured in the accident.
Thanks to reader @bonanos for the tip.
Sarah B.
What an A$$, this happens way to often. People go roaring down Geary St . to the beach.
Thank god he didn’t hit anyone!
Better to lose your license because you did damage to a building than to lose your license because you killed someone.
…the driver will lose their license, right?
The drivers who have killed or injured pedestrians have generally not been heavily penalized, some have been let off with community service, etc. I’m sure though that knocking off Cliff House will carry a much harsher penalty than knocking off a mere person.
Along with the huge influx of transplants to the Richmond in the past year, especially, I have noticed proliferation of SUVs and BMWs, a deadly combination if ever there was one.
There was a massive influx of SUVs during Dot Bomb. Most of them parked on the sidewalks which were not designed to support vehicles weighing more than a ton. That resulted in the red spray paint brigade and steep invoices from City Hall for repairs. Back in the 1940s, there were no sidewalks on residential blocks, just a path from the front door to the street and a couple of treads leading into garages.
Most of the trials I have been called to for Jury Duty (absent the zero notices during K. Harris’ tenure) over decades have been for misdemeanor manslaughter DUI. The Public Defender is very careful to select jurors who have no experience with alcohol and no points on their driving record.
Losing ones license (or not even having one) does not appear to be much of an impediment to many individuals. Yes, there is insufficient traffic enforcement in the City, but much of that can be attributed to the Courts and their supposed lack of money and antiquated technology. I used to get called to Jury Duty every 12-18 months from the 1970s through the 1990s; since 2000 I have been called three times.
This happened on Point Lobos Ave and at the Cliff House, which is part of the GGNRA. Doesn’t the USPP have jurisdiction here, and shouldn’t this guy being getting screwed in federal court instead of state court?
I’ve seen CA laws on DUI be incredibly lax, I wonder what federal law says when it comes to this.
Considering the Cliff House’s historical significance to San Francisco, I wonder if some sort of guard rail or a curbside row of reinforced planters/posts could be erected to prevent such damage to it in the future? Seeing that the Cliff House is located on a tricky curve to maneuver through (especially while intoxicated), I’m thinking that this type of accident is bound to happen again.
The SUVs have been here for awhile. BTW, nearly every car weighs more than a ton (the Smart is an exception). I typically see more sedans parked on the sidewalk than SUVs. Regardless, if the sidewalks were incapable of holding more than a ton, then we would have Camrys, Pathfinders, Lexus, etc. falling through the sidewalks all over the neighborhood.