Injury crashes dropped 33% in Berkeley in first quarter of 2023
Berkeley had 104 injury collisions over the first three months of the year. Of those injury crashes, 19 involved pedestrians and 14 involved cyclists.
Injury collisions were down 33% in Berkeley during the first quarter of 2023 compared to the prior three months, according to new data released this week by the Berkeley Police Department.
Berkeley police began posting quarterly collision data in April on its Transparency Hub data portal.
During the last quarter of 2022, injury collisions trended up, data showed, but the first quarter of the year appears to have shown improvement.
Berkeley had 104 injury collisions over the first three months of the year, according to the Transparency Hub.
Of those injury crashes, 19 involved pedestrians and 14 involved cyclists.
Twenty-two of the injury crashes involved hit-and-run drivers, including nine where drivers hit pedestrians and six where cyclists were struck.
Berkeley had 17 DUI collisions over that period, down 23% from the prior quarter. Four of those crashes resulted in injuries.
There were no fatal crashes in the first three months of the year.
Read more about traffic safety in Berkeley.
Unsafe speed has been the most prevalent factor causing injury crashes in Berkeley this year, according to Berkeley police data, followed by unsafe turning and failure to yield.
Failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk and failure to stop at a red light were the next most common causes of injury crashes in the first quarter of 2023, according to the data.
The Transparency Hub does not distinguish between serious injury collisions and those that are less serious.
That information is available elsewhere, including on UC Berkeley's Transportation Injury Mapping System site, but takes longer to appear.
In addition to other context, BPD's traffic data page also makes it easy to find out more about the city's Vision Zero campaign to end traffic fatalities and serious injury collisions in the coming years.
The page also includes a form community members can fill out to report incidents or areas of concern to the Traffic Bureau.
Read more about how to use BPD's Transparency Hub in our last report on the subject. The system has its limitations but does make more Berkeley police data available than ever before.
