There's a totally fascinating article about this year's traffic deaths in San Francisco today, by the inimitable Rachel Gordon. At about the 2/3rd mark for the year, we've had 29 traffic collision deaths, which is already three more than the entire year's total in 2005. 2006's total includes 1 bicyclist and 15 pedestrians (including one guy washing his car outside his house, when a drunk driver hit him).

However, injuries are down slightly from last year -- there were 3227 injury accidents in 2005 and if things keep going the way they are now, we'll be slightly under 3000 for 2006. People think maybe those countdown pedestrian signals might have something to do with the drop. In any event, this year's not nearly as bad as 1998 was -- that was some kind of watershed year with 53 dead, 32 of whom were pedestrians.

There's also some fascinating stats. The most dangerous intersection last year was 9th and Harrison (10 injuries last year; traffic engineers are looking into it), and the second-most dangerous is Market and Gough (9 injuries last year). The city blames all that Central Freeway construction for confusing everyone. The safest day of the week to be out on the streets is Sunday, and the most dangerous is Friday. Hey, is Critical Mass a cause or an effect of that?

Picture of Gavin Newsom biking to work in 2004.