The capital region is one of the deadliest areas for pedestrians in the country, a new report has found.
Over a five-year period, 377 pedestrians died, placing the Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom metropolitan area at 20th on Smart Growth America’s 2024 list of the most dangerous places for people on foot.
The hundreds of victims include Terry Turner, 44, a beloved older brother and father of three, who was struck and killed in Meadowview. Jonathan Moran, 17, was struck and killed on the sidewalk on Stockton Boulevard. Ann Daum, 68, was hit and killed in Hagginwood. Her family wrote in her obituary that she loved fashion and her truck.
In the past five years, from 2013 to 2017, another 238 pedestrians were killed.
Only four locations in California surpassed the Capital Region. Stockton is the 19th deadliest, the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area came in at 12th, Fresno was seventh and Bakersfield was the fourth deadliest in the country, with 3.99 deaths per 100,000 people.
While traffic-related deaths have risen nationally, the death rate in the Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom region has skyrocketed. Between 2018 and 2022, the average annual pedestrian mortality rate was 3.15 deaths per 100,000 residents. Smart Growth America, a nonprofit organization focused on community development strategies, found that California’s metropolitan area was the 27th most dangerous place in 2022 with an average of 2.53 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 residents.
The death toll is striking, said Sacramento County Coroner Rosa Vega. She created a public data set of motor vehicle deaths that shows more than 70 pedestrians were killed in the county alone in 2022. Her published data shows that more than 20 of those pedestrians were killed on the streets of the city of Sacramento that year.
She said the most basic conclusion from the coroner’s data is: “Wow, there’s a significant number of deaths.”
The city of Sacramento has identified a “high injury network” of surface streets where most deaths and serious injuries occur. Terry Turner, Jonathan Moran and Ann Daum all lost their lives on the network with many injured, along with the majority of people who died walking the city streets in 2022.
Other municipalities have shown that the vast majority of traffic fatalities are preventable: slowing down traffic reduces the frequency and lethality of accidents. On Sacramento’s city streets, the speed limits can often be fatal. A study in Accident Analysis & Prevention found that when a car hits a pedestrian traveling at just 52.5 km/h, the average risk of the person dying on foot is 25%. At a speed of 65 km/h, the average risk of pedestrian death is 50%.
Madison, Wisconsin – one of the safest places in the report – has begun lowering speed limits to 20 miles per hour on some nearby streets.
The Sacramento area has a pedestrian death rate four times higher than Wisconsin’s capital. And for hundreds of local families, that figure represents an unbearable loss.
A hard life ended too soon on a dangerous path
Turner, a resilient father of three who grew up in Sacramento County, was fatally struck by a car on Oct. 27, 2022, at Meadowview Road and Henrietta Drive. He was born on March 23, 1978. He was 44.
Turner was born in Sacramento to Cheryl and Terry Turner. He grew up with two younger brothers: Anthony, the middle child, and Mandel, with whom he became close despite a seven-year age difference. Terry was protective of his younger siblings, Mandel said. The older boy took his brothers to play on the basketball court at North Country Elementary School in Antelope, near the family home.
Terry brought one word to mind for his youngest brother: “Loyal.” Mandel knew that you could tell Terry a secret, but he would never tell anyone. If Terry loved you, he would never say an unkind word about you.
The younger man tried to return the favor. Terry, Mandel said, “has suffered a lot in his life. And as his brother, it was quite difficult for me to see that happen. Terry was in prison, which isolated him from family and friends. He “sometimes made terrible decisions, and then he paid for them.”
Still, Mandel said, “As his little brother, I always had his back.”
In the summer of 2018, Mandel drove his niece – Terry’s eldest daughter – and her son to the Bay Area so Terry could meet his grandson for the first time. At the time, Terry was living in a halfway house in San Francisco, adjusting to life after prison.
Terry can be a difficult person to maintain a relationship with, but before he was murdered on a road the city deemed dangerous, it was important to Mandel to keep their ties alive. So he drove his niece and her baby to San Francisco. “I knew it meant something to him,” Mandel said. “You know, that’s why I did it.”
The visit didn’t last particularly long and Mandel doesn’t even remember what they did. They probably got something to eat; They probably spent some time together in the house, just chatting. What he does remember is how his brother held his grandchild. He remembers the feeling, the solidarity. Just being able to spend time together.
