In a shocking turn of events in Redwood City on Saturday night, a 19-year-old man who was the victim of a hit-and-run ended up allegedly striking multiple pedestrians after attempting to chase after the vehicle.

According to KRON4, around 10:06 p.m. on Saturday, 19-year-old Brian Barbatajimaroa called Redwood City police to report that he was actively pursuing the driver who hit his car. After obtaining the license plate info of the suspect's vehicle, dispatch told Barbatajimaroa to pull over and wait for officers to respond.

Barbatajimaroa continued to pursue the vehicle, driving at excessive speeds and ignoring traffic signals before briefly pulling the vehicle over. Then, Barbatajimaroa drove toward a group of pedestrians, striking several people. Two of the pedestrians were taken to the hospital.

Barbatajimaroa was arrested and booked with four counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

Image: Tsvetoslav Hristov/Unsplash

We were bicycling out in Parkside today, and we stopped to admire the new traffic signals at 19th and Sloat. It's still extraordinarily dangerous, and perhaps worse. The sign telling cars to yield on green for a left turn is still up, so drivers edge out in to the intersection, begging to get creamed by traffic coming the other way on Sloat. That left-turn signal? It lasts for precisely two seconds, at the end of the green light. Two seconds of protected left time, which means that people who waited for that arrow careen towards the crosswalk as fast as they can. Woe betide any pedestrian caught there at night. We watched through two cycles as left-turners nearly creamed cars turning right off of Sloat, and were nearly smashed by oncoming traffic. This was at two in the afternoon - what is it like at rush hour?

Ugh. We're not traffic engineers, but surely there's a better way to do this? Like a real left-turn lane, which turns on when traffic the other way has a red, and only after the pedestrian countdown is over? Caltrans? DPT? Anyone?