SAN JOSE — A 72-year-old woman has died from injuries she suffered when a driver hit her as she walked along Alum Rock Avenue near the Interstate 680 on-ramp earlier this month, continuing a record pace for city roadway deaths, authorities said.
The collision was reported at 5:34 a.m. March 2 after the driver of a 2006 Chevrolet HHR compact SUV, traveling west on Alum Rock, hit the woman as she was walking in a crosswalk across the entrance to northbound Interstate 680, according to San Jose police.
The woman was taken to a local hospital with serious injuries, and was initially listed in stable condition, but she died March 17, police said. The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office identified her as San Jose resident Hui Juan Xuan.
Police said the driver stopped at the scene and that there is no evidence that he was driving impaired. There is no indication that the driver was cited or arrested.
The death marked the city’s 22nd traffic death of the year, and the 12th involving a pedestrian who died.
San Jose is on pace to shatter previous traffic fatality records; the city saw 60 traffic fatalities in 2021, matching 20-year-plus highs reached in 2015 and 2019.
There were seven roadway deaths recorded by the same time last year. In the previous five years, the city did not typically log 20 or more deaths until May or June.
On Wednesday, city leaders and police held a news conference to support the hiring of additional police officers to bolster traffic enforcement in the city. Currently, there are 18 officers assigned to that duty. They also advocated for an assembly bill that would fund a pilot program to install speed-tracking cameras on high-usage and high-danger city roads.
The coroner’s office Friday also identified the driver killed in a single-vehicle crash Wednesday evening, at East Santa Clara and North 11th streets, as 59-year-old San Jose resident Joana Dee Richardson.
Anyone with information about the March 2 fatal collision can contact SJPD traffic Detective Matt Templeman at 408-277-4654.
Source: www.mercurynews.com