Traffic Fatalities

Measure description

Vision Zero is San Francisco’s road safety policy focused on eliminating traffic fatalities and building safer, more livable streets. The number of traffic fatalities is a key citywide metric that reflects progress toward this goal. Vision Zero is a collaborative effort among multiple City agencies, co-chaired by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and the Department of Public Health (DPH).

Why the measure is important

Reporting the number of Traffic Fatalities for each calendar year provides the public, elected officials, and City staff with a current snapshot of the progress of San Francisco’s Vision Zero Initiative. Reporting on this data allows City departments to analyze trends and focus their efforts on the most impactful projects that will help reduce fatalities.

The interactive dashboards below present the City’s annual Traffic Fatality count.

Traffic Fatalities Dashboards

Chart description

Teal blue bar: People killed while cycling
Purple bar: People killed while driving
Dark blue bar: People killed while walking

Chart description

Y-axis: Number of traffic fatalities
X-axis: Calendar years

Vision Zero Map

Learn more about the locations of traffic fatalities using the Vision Zero Map.

The map shows the locations of all traffic fatalities that occurred on streets within the City of San Francisco since 2014. Freeway deaths are not included in Vision Zero counts.

There are three different types of maps within the dashboard:

Fatality Type
- This map shows the type of fatality that occurred (e.g. Bicyclist, Driver, Exterior Passenger, etc)

High Injury Network
- This map shows whether or not a fatality occurred on the City's high injury network.

Equity Priority Communities
- This map shows whether or not a fatality occurred within an equity priority area.

How performance is measured

Traffic fatalities are reported by mode of travel (people walking, biking, driving, motorcycling, and riding in a vehicle) and are compared to the same month in the previous year.

Modes are grouped as:

Vehicle or motorcycle: Auto or motorcycle fatalities
Walking: Pedestrian fatalities
Biking: Bicycle fatalities

Fatalities include:

Anyone killed in or outside of a vehicle (bus, truck, car, motorcycle, bike, moped, or light rail vehicle) involved in a crash
Anyone killed within the public roadway due to impact with a vehicle or road structure
Anyone who dies within 30 days of the public roadway incident as a result of the injury sustained within the City or County of San Francisco

If a person dies within 30 days of the collision but in a later month or year, the fatality is classified by the collision date. This aligns with the definition used by the California Highway Patrol’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS), with the exception that San Francisco includes multiple types of light rail vehicle (LRV) fatalities.

LRV deaths involving motor vehicles are captured in SWITRS.
Pedestrian or cyclist fatalities involving LRVs are not captured in SWITRS but will be included in the appropriate category and noted with an asterisk below the table.

This approach supports long-term trend analysis and consistency with previous SWITRS data.

The number displayed on the Transit and Street Safety scorecard page represents the calendar year annual total of the values in the line chart above.

*Note: Data do not reflect freeway deaths occurring on grade-separated freeways/roadways under Caltrans jurisdiction in the City and County of San Francisco, which are tracked and mapped separately.

Additional information

Data notes and sources

Data lag: 1 month. Representatives from SFMTA,  DPH, and the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) meet monthly to reconcile the previous month’s traffic deaths using Office of the Medical Examiner’s and SFPD data. For example, May’s data will be available at the end of June.