SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A man dressed in dark clothing was struck as he walked in a University City street at night, suffering serious but non-life threatening injuries, police said Wednesday.
The crash happened about 9:15 p.m. Tuesday in the 3700 block of La Jolla Village Drive, San Diego police officer John Buttle said.
The 51-year-old was in an eastbound lane on the road when he was struck head-on by a 2007 Toyota Camry, Buttle said. The 21-year-old driver saw the pedestrian too late and hit him despite taking evasive action to try to avoid the collision.
Paramedics took the victim to a hospital for treatment of his injuries, Buttle said. Alcohol was not involved in the crash and no citations were issued, though traffic division officers are still investigating the crash.
The collision happened the same day the San Diego Police Department, among other law enforcement agencies in the county, began a crackdown on drivers and pedestrians in an effort to decrease the number of traffic collisions involving pedestrians. The California Office of Traffic Safety has dubbed September "California Pedestrian Safety Month" for the second consecutive year in response to an uptick in the number of pedestrians being injured and killed.
Last year, 892 pedestrians were killed on California roadways, accounting for about a quarter of all traffic fatalities, well above the national average of 15 percent. The number of pedestrians killed was also up from 2013, when 701 pedestrians died on California roadways.
The San Diego Police Department investigated more than 250 fatal and injury crashes involving pedestrians from 2014 to 2016, Officer Mark McCullough said.
In order to combat the rising number of pedestrian-involved collisions, the SDPD and National City Police Department announced Tuesday they had identified particularly dangerous or troublesome areas and would be patrolling those areas carefully throughout the month to crack down on drivers and pedestrians making the roads unsafe.
