Woman killed by garbage truck while taking out her trash in San Jose
SAN JOSE, Calif. - San Jose police on Wednesday morning raced to the scene of a residential street where a woman was killed by a garbage truck as she was taking her trash down to the street.
Police spokesman Officer Steven Aponte said the woman appeared in the driver's blind spot. The California Waste Solutions driver stayed behind to cooperate with the investigation.
The death was reported just before 8 a.m. in the 400 block of Fontanelle Court.
Neither the woman nor the driver were identified. The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death, and release the identity of the woman who was hit and killed.
"Whether or not the victim was in motion or the car was in motion at the time based on the preliminary investigation, we’re still getting those facts," said Officer Aponte.
Aerial footage from the scene showed the truck and the garbage can still in the street lined with homes and palm trees.
This brings the number of people killed in San Jose car accidents to 11 this year. It is the 10th fatal collision and the 8th pedestrian death of 2022, police added. Last year, the same mark wasn’t reached until June.
This latest death follows on the heels of somber news announced on Monday: Travis Repman, who was struck by a van on Jan. 23 while crossing The Alameda at Newhall Street, died of his injuries five days later.
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Officials with the City of San Jose said a safety campaign is being prepared that will launch in 2023.
Ahead of that, signage and billboards are planned reminding drivers to slow down and watch for pedestrians.
Experts say re-evaluation of roadways and traffic patterns is in order to combat what they believe is a national trend of increasing pedestrian fatal collisions.
"The right approach is to take a systemic approach. Look at where these collisions are happening, identify what’s happening at those specific locations and then and fix all those locations that have those characteristics," said Dr. Anurag Pande, a civil engineer at California Polytechnic State University.
Traffic deaths across the United States began to spike in 2019, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration blamed speeding and other reckless driving behavior for the increases during the coronavirus pandemic.
Before then, the number of fatalities had fallen for three straight years.