The good news is that San Francisco saw the lowest number of homicides in 2024 than the city has had in 64 years. The bad news is that traffic deaths were at a level we haven’t seen in 17 years.

We’re going to knock on wood here, as at press time for this post, there are more than 24 hours left in the year 2024. But as we noted a little less than three weeks ago, despite the Fox News hysteria about San Francisco crime, the city is on track to see the lowest number of homicides in 64 years. As of about 5 pm on December 30, San Francisco has seen only 34 murders for the year. That's the lowest number since 1960, when San Francisco saw only 30 murders, and at the time had a population of roughly 200,000 fewer people than it has today.

But the Chronicle notes another troubling counter-trend. San Francisco saw more deaths from car crashes than murders in 2024. The traffic death toll reached 41 deaths in 2024, the largest number of traffic deaths the city has seen since 2007. And quite disturbingly, that is a 47% increase from just last year, as the city encountered only 26 traffic deaths in 2023.

More than half of those 41 traffic deaths were pedestrians killed by car crashes, per the Chronicle. Among these of course were the four people killed at a West Portal bus stop in March (including an infant), and we noted that a Zeitgeist bartender was killed while walking on Geary Street in October.

Both SF figures are in line with national trends, showing that homicides are decreasing across the country, while pedestrian deaths from car crashes are on the rise.

But that’s little consolation for San Francisco. Then-Mayor Ed Lee announced his Vision Zero plan in 2015, hoping to “eliminate traffic fatalities by 2024.” Well, back in 2015 we only had 31 traffic deaths. In 2024, we had 41. So Vision Zero has not only failed to eliminate traffic deaths, it has coincided with an increase in them.  

Related: SF on Track to See the Lowest Number of Homicides In 64 Years as 2024 Comes to a Close [SFist]

Image: San Francisco, USA - December 31, 2017: Old classical American police car in San Francisco at duty. (Getty Images)