About an hour ago, (10am this beautiful Tuesday morning) we were standing out front of El Cafetazo having a smoke.
We noticed a white Pacific Gas & Electric Van parked in the No Parking-Construction space at corner of 16th Street & Rondel Place (between Valenica & Mission, directly across from Mission Bank).
Not sure if he was working or picking up a burrito at Pancho Villas (many city workers park in the Red Fire Zone and block the alley to 'run in' and pick up food at Pancho Villas because there is NO parking often due to Valet Parkers for upscale restaurants who STEAL MANY SPACES for hours at a time, rotating client vehicles which means no locals can park near local mom & pop's -safely- to pick up food - as we all could a couple years ago, before this community destroying gentrification scheme went into effect) or not, but he was parked in a space marked No Parking for Construction Zone, in the first place.
This PG&E Van started to pull out, a bit sharp & fast, of where it was parked.
We could not see if he was on his cell phone or not. The Security Officer at the Mission Bank across the street may have seen as he is on the look out for unsafe drivers in this zone, as we are.
At that moment, we saw a small red car coming down 16th in the same direction, travelling at a normal rate of speed.
Then we heard the crash and crunch, as the van tried to move out into the lane, as the other car was already in motion, approaching.
We hate that area because there are tons of close calls every day, as uber, lyft, big fast trucks from dolores park construction crews (driving too fast, chatting on cell phones) converging fast.
All driving bad, blocking traffic and it outrages drivers that causes them to break more laws & take more chances out of frustration.
This is what unplanned, short sided gentrification and density increases gives your community. Chaos.
So, we went over and took pictures.
The P G & E Driver was stressed, trying to get others to agree with him that he had 'the right of way'...
Which he may or may not have, but the way we saw it...
Unless he was able to see the other car at a dead stop, he should never have tried to 'beat the car out' if he even saw it at all.
Since he said he 'had the right of way' it looks like he saw the car, moving down the streets and 'took' his right of way, by gunning up the engines and tried to cut off the approaching car.
The woman's car, the red one, was in a perfectly straight line, on the proper side of the double yellow, yet his van angle is VERY SHARP and a bit of a distance from where he started out from.
So, it looks like he did not see or did not care about the approaching car.
Here are the pictures.. Looks like she (red car) was in motion -before- the van pulled away from the curb... likely she was in a 'blind spot' or perhaps one or both drivers were on their cell phone, ipod of other Distracting & Deadly Device -right before- or -during- the impact.
Have a safe day!
