Drive anywhere between the Golden Gate Bridge and downtown San Jose and you're sharing the road with three of California's largest cities, a dozen freeway interchanges, and some of the heaviest commute traffic in the country. Crash patterns look different from city to city, but a few numbers stand out. San Francisco just posted its lowest traffic death toll since 2018. San Jose's fatality count is at its lowest point since before the city adopted Vision Zero. And in Oakland, a single intersection on International Boulevard has racked up 89 injury crashes in seven years. Here's what the local data shows, and what each city is doing about it.
San Francisco posts fewest deaths since 2018, but pedestrians still hit hardest
Twenty-five people died in traffic crashes in San Francisco in 2025, down from 43 in 2024, a 42 percent drop and the city's lowest total since 2018.1 Pedestrian deaths fell 33 percent over the same period, and injury crashes citywide were the second-lowest since Vision Zero began in 2014.1 Even so, San Francisco has the highest share of fatal pedestrian crashes of any city NHTSA tracks. 52.9 percent of the city's fatal collisions involve someone on foot, nearly double the rate in New York or Boston.2 Six people died on San Francisco streets in the first two and a half months of 2026 alone, five of them pedestrians, at locations including Bayshore Boulevard and Silver Avenue, Bayshore Boulevard and Arleta Avenue, Fourth Street and Channel Street, Mission Street and Naglee Avenue, and Kearny Street and Broadway. The Bayshore and Silver intersection alone logged 12 collisions over five years.2
The city's updated High Injury Network, the map used to target engineering and enforcement, shows that just 13 percent of San Francisco's streets account for 74 percent of severe and fatal crashes.3 A street gets added if 10 or more people were killed or severely injured there between 2020 and 2024. Newer additions include Fulton Street between Fourth and Seventh avenues, the Embarcadero between Howard Street and Pier 40, and Point Lobos Avenue between 46th Avenue and the Great Highway.3 Where the city has redesigned a corridor, the numbers move fast. California Street between 18th Avenue and Arguello Boulevard saw injury collisions drop 64 percent in the first year, and Townsend Street between Third and Eighth streets saw a 52 percent drop in total collisions, with pedestrian collisions down 70 percent.3
Speed cameras are part of that shift. Fifty-six cameras now cover 33 of the city's most dangerous intersections, and speeding at 15 of the earliest camera locations fell 72 percent after enforcement began, with average speeds dropping about 4 mph and roughly 20,000 fewer speeding vehicles passing through each day.4 At Fulton Street and Second Avenue near Golden Gate Park, daily speeding citations fell from about 1,000 to 500 within a month.4 Policy caught up with the numbers on September 16, 2025, when the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the Street Safety Act, authored by Supervisor Myrna Melgar. It replaced the old Vision Zero framework, which had expired in 2024 after failing to reach zero deaths, with hard deadlines for seven city agencies, including SFMTA redesign plans due in December 2026 and quarterly public dashboards tracked by the Controller's Office.5
Oakland's International Boulevard remains the corridor to watch
Oakland recorded 23 traffic deaths in 2025, down from a recent high of 36 in both 2020 and 2022.6 The city's High Injury Network centers on International Boulevard and Bancroft Avenue, and a review of Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System data covering 2017 through 2023 found the single worst spot in the city is International Boulevard at 73rd Avenue, with 89 recorded injuries.7 Close behind: Hamilton Street and Hegenberger Road (58 injuries, 3 fatalities), International Boulevard and High Street (57 injuries, 1 fatality), Bancroft Avenue and 73rd Avenue (56 injuries), High Street and Foothill Boulevard (51 injuries), and International Boulevard and 80th Avenue (38 injuries, 2 fatalities).7
International Boulevard as a whole has recorded 57 traffic deaths since 2002, an average of about three a year with a peak of seven in 2017, on a corridor posted at 25 mph where drivers have been clocked at 70 mph or faster.8 Foothill Boulevard and 26th Avenue was the site of a 2019 crash that killed a mother and her son, a case city officials still cite when discussing the corridor.6 Oakland's Department of Transportation finished 20 capital safety projects in 2025, including nine bikeway projects and 22 traffic-slowing treatments on High Injury Network streets, and its new automated speed camera program issued roughly 82,000 fines in the first 40 days of 2026.6 The city's traffic deaths remain sharply uneven by race. Black residents made up 43 percent of fatalities between 2021 and 2025, and Latine residents made up 25 percent, in a city where neither group is a majority of the population.6
San Jose's fatalities fall to a post-2012 low
San Jose recorded 41 traffic deaths in 2025, down 16 percent from 49 in 2024 and well below the 2022 peak of 63, the lowest count since 2012.9 Pedestrian deaths held roughly steady at 20, even as deaths among vehicle occupants, cyclists, and motorcyclists all declined.9 San Jose adopted Vision Zero in 2015, the fourth U.S. city to do so, with a goal of zero traffic deaths by 2040 and a 30 percent cut in deaths and severe injuries by 2030.10 Its 2025 Vision Zero Action Plan doubled the mileage of Priority Safety Corridors, the streets with the most fatal and severe-injury crashes, now including Story Road, Capitol Expressway, White Road, McKee Road, Santa Clara Street and Alum Rock Avenue, and Jackson Avenue, along with Senter Road, Tully Road, and King Road.10 The city cut speed limits on 18 roadways in 2025 and used a $12.9 million federal grant awarded in 2023 to fund protected bike lanes, crossing upgrades, and other safety features on four transit corridors.9
El Camino Real is the Peninsula's deadliest stretch
Zoom out from the three big cities and one road connecting them shows up again and again in crash data: El Camino Real, the old State Route 82 that runs from San Francisco through the Peninsula to San Jose. An analysis of NHTSA crash data by Bay Area News Group found 129 fatalities along the corridor between 2002 and 2022, split roughly between 71 deaths in San Mateo County and 58 in Santa Clara County, making it the deadliest single road in the region over that span.8 Because El Camino Real is a state highway, it falls under Caltrans jurisdiction rather than any single city's, which has slowed coordinated fixes even as crash patterns on the corridor stay well documented.
Wrong-way crashes on Bay Area freeways
Bay Area freeways have their own recurring hazard: wrong-way drivers entering off-ramps against traffic. One April weekend produced four separate wrong-way crashes across the region in less than 48 hours. Two people were killed near Mathilda Avenue on Highway 237 in Sunnyvale, one was killed on Interstate 280 south of Highway 92 in Woodside, one was killed on Highway 101 near San Rafael, and a crash with injuries closed lanes on Interstate 580 near the Seminary Avenue off-ramp in Oakland.11 Caltrans has run a wrong-way driver monitoring program since 1985, using collision data to flag problem locations and send engineers out to recommend fixes such as lowered signage and reflective markers aimed at drivers facing the wrong direction.12
After a crash
If you're sorting out fault, dealing with an insurer, or trying to figure out who's responsible for a crash on one of these corridors, a police report citing the exact road and cross street matters, and so does knowing whether the road itself (signal timing, sightlines, missing signage) played a role. A claim against a public agency like Caltrans or a city transportation department works differently than one against another driver. An attorney familiar with Bay Area crash claims can help sort that out; you can find one through the legal directory.
This article is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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SFMTA, "Press Release - San Francisco Traffic Fatalities Drop by Nearly Half in 2025," https://www.sfmta.com/press-releases/press-release-san-francisco-traffic-fatalities-drop-nearly-half-2025
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The San Francisco Standard, "SF has the highest share of pedestrian traffic deaths in the U.S.," https://sfstandard.com/2026/03/17/sf-pedestrian-deaths-vision-zero/
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SFMTA, "The New High Injury Network Map Helps Guide Us to a Safer City," https://www.sfmta.com/blog/new-high-injury-network-map-helps-guide-us-safer-city
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The San Francisco Standard, "Cameras drastically curb speeding at SF's most dangerous intersections," https://sfstandard.com/2025/10/03/cameras-drastically-curb-speeding-sf-s-dangerous-intersections-new-data-show/
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GrowSF, "Street Safety Act Replaces Vision Zero," https://growsf.org/news/2025-09-26-street-safety-act/
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The Oaklandside, "Oakland's roads are slowly getting safer," https://oaklandside.org/2026/06/23/oaklands-roads-are-slowly-getting-safer/
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The Oaklandside, "Where are Oakland's 20 most dangerous intersections?," https://oaklandside.org/2024/06/18/where-are-oaklands-20-most-dangerous-intersections/
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CBS News San Francisco, "Traffic data: Oakland's International Blvd. among deadliest roads in Bay Area," https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/international-blvd-oakland-among-deadliest-bay-area-roads-traffic-data/
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San José Spotlight, "San Jose traffic deaths dropped in 2025," https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-traffic-deaths-dropped-in-2025/
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City of San José, "Introducing the 2025 Vision Zero Action Plan," https://www.sanjoseca.gov/Home/Components/News/News/6488/4765
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CBS News San Francisco, "Update: 4 dead in 4 separate wrong-way crashes on Bay Area highways over the weekend," https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/wrong-way-crash-highway-237-280-101-580-sunnyvale-woodside-san-rafael-oakland
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Caltrans District 4, "District 4 works to get traffic moving in right direction," https://dot.ca.gov/ctnews/archive/2025-01/news/70-wrong-way