San Jose reaches grim milestone: 30th pedestrian killed in traffic crash this year
SAN JOSE, Calif. - San Jose police say they’ve arrested a 20-year-old woman in the hit-and-run crash that injured a woman pushing her 3-year-old grandson last week. This arrest is made just as San Jose marks its 30th pedestrian death in this morning.
San Jose city officials say they’re grappling with the record-high number of traffic accidents and deaths this year. Officials say they continue making adjustments to street designs to make drivers slow down.
Twenty-year-old Alexa Hadjilatiph has been arrested after police say she admitted to driving this car when she struck a grandmother as she pushed her grandson in a stroller in San Jose. She was arrested on suspicion of felony-hit-and-run and is now out on bail.
On Wednesday morning, another man was struck by a car and killed while crossing the street at the intersection of Almaden Expressway and Cherry Avenue.
"So, we did reach a grim milestone early this morning with our 30th pedestrian fatality due to a traffic crash in San Jose. That’s an all-time high as far as our current records go. It brought us to a total of 58 fatalities from 56 crashes this year," said Colin Heyne, a spokesperson for the San Jose Transportation Department.
Police believe the man killed was homeless, and his identity has not been released. Transportation officials say San Jose was originally designed for fast vehicle traffic and speeding is the main cause of crashes.
"As we have grown as a city, we’re trying to make things denser and make it a more welcoming environment for walking and bicycling," Heyne said.
Heyne says the city is focused on adding quick-build projects like plastic posts, paint and traffic light timing to immediately impact how fast cars are going. A local bicycling advocacy group says San Jose has to allocate more funding to make streets safer.
"We at the Bike Coalition are about encouraging the city of San Jose and cities everywhere in Silicon Valley, to stripe the streets in a way that makes people behave differently when they’re behind the wheel," said Shiloh Ballard, Executive Director of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition.
Ballard says California Highway Patrol data shows there are 20 crashes in San Jose every day while people are walking, biking and driving. Ten of them involve injuries and at least one person dies each week.
"You’re always going to have bad actors and people are going to misbehave, and we can control how people behave by the way that we design things," Ballard said.
San Jose is the 4th major city to declare Vision Zero which is a world-wide movement to eliminate traffic accidents. Heyne says it’s an ambitious goal, but the city will continue making efforts to slow down traffic.