Every Bay Area road death from 2001 to 2009

Judging from the all-day, late-model parade on I-80 yesterday, lots of us spent part of Thanksgiving on the road. Hopefully all of your friends and family arrive safely this entire holiday weekend.

Statistically speaking, though, not everyone does. In 2010, 21 people died on California roads over Thanksgiving weekend. And nationally, 369,629 drivers, passengers, motorcyclists, pedestrians and cyclists died between 2001-2009.

The numbers can be a bit difficult to visualize, unless, well, you visualize them. That’s exactly what dataviz wizards ITO World did, placing every single road death in the USA on an interactive map. The map includes each victim’s age and year of death, and can be zoomed down to street level.

In the Bay Area, some trends and clusters emerge:

• Most pedestrian fatalities in The City were seniors. Van Ness, Geary and Sixth Street all have clusters of pedestrian deaths.
• The busy Bay Bridge has the most fatalities of all Bay Area bridges.
• Motorcyclists, be careful on 101 through The City. Especially at the I-80/101 interchange and the Cesar Chavez exits.
• Of 34 fatalities on and near Skyline Boulevard in San Mateo County (CA-35), 22 were to motorcyclists. The twisty roads in these hills are fun and dangerous, with lots of sports cars and motorcyclists pushing their limits.

Check out your corner of The Bay on the interactive map to see how your neighborhood fares.

Jesse Garnier

Jesse Garnier is the editor and founder of SFBay. A Mission District native, he also teaches journalism as associate professor at San Francisco State University.