Sacramento car crashes on dangerous roads killed six people last month. Where?
At least six people died in vehicle crashes in the first month of 2026 — a heartbreaking start to Sacramento’s 10th year of underfunded efforts to eliminate traffic deaths.
Reema Ram, 37; Maria Aurora Victoria Titman, 29; Christian David Garcia Flores, 31; Eunice La Vonne Queener, 67; Paris Lamar Johnson, 35; and a 50-year-old pedestrian whose name has not been released by the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office died in collisions in the first few weeks of the year. Titman, Garcia Flores and Queener were all killed in the same crash on Northgate and Del Paso boulevards, an intersection next to the onramp to Highway 160.
In 2017, Sacramento’s City Council made a “Vision Zero” pledge to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries by 2027. Since January 2024 — just over two years — The Sacramento Bee has reported 71 deaths on city streets. While most of the dead so far this year have been inside vehicles, the majority of people killed on city streets are pedestrians or cyclists.
The vast majority of traffic deaths are preventable with changes to infrastructure and policy. Sacramento is now in the process of updating its Vision Zero plan, which was last finalized in 2018. That plan identified the city’s high-injury network, which is the collection of city streets where the highest numbers of fatal and severe injury collisions occur. That network makes up just 14% of city streets, but 77% of crashes that lead to a death or severe injury happen on those roadways. All four deadly crashes in January happened directly on or just outside the high-injury network.
The City Council approved a “quick-build” road safety team last year, and the Department of Public Works initially said it expected the six-person team to be up and running as of July 1, 2025. Some quick-build projects have been installed, but the team has not yet materialized. On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Works, Gabby Miller, said the city had no “official” hires, but added that she expected to make an announcement in the coming weeks.
Data from UC Berkeley’s Transportation Injury Mapping System combined with reporting from The Sacramento Bee shows that between January 2017 and the end of 2025, an average of 38 people died each year. The death toll in each of the past two years has been lower than that average — with 33 dead in 2024 and at least 32 dead in 2025. However, the average number of annual deaths has also markedly increased since before the council made the Vision Zero pledge. In the three years before 2017, Sacramento saw an average of 28 traffic deaths per year.
In other words, over the years since the council vowed to eliminate traffic deaths, the city has only gotten further away from that goal.
Where did crashes happen in January?
The first deadly collision in 2026 occurred on New Year’s Day. Ram was driving on Power Inn Road when she crashed into a pole near 38th Avenue. Power Inn Road is wide, with two general-purpose lanes in each direction and a center turning lane. In the immediate area of the crash, homes line one side of the street, but the speed limit is set at 45 mph. Higher speeds cause a greater risk in the event of a crash, particularly for people outside vehicles. Research also shows that straight, wide roads lead to faster speeds.
The second collision occurred at 49th Street and Fruitridge Road. A pedestrian whose name has not been released was fatally struck by a driver a few blocks west of Stockton Boulevard. Fruitridge is one of the most dangerous streets in the city, particularly for pedestrians. This section of Fruitridge has four lanes in each direction and a center turning lane. The crash occurred just six blocks east of an intersection where pedestrians Cornelius Jesse, 59, and James Lind, 54, were killed in separate crashes in the last two years.
The third collision occurred Jan. 10 at Northgate and Del Paso boulevards, killing three people who were passengers and sending two other people to the hospital, the Sacramento Police Department said. Queener was in one vehicle, while Titman and Garcia Flores were both in the other.
The intersection of Northgate and Del Paso is right by the onramp to Highway 160, under an elevated section of the freeway that stands over the American River Parkway. The intersection is controlled by stop signs, and many vehicles using the area are either getting onto southbound Highway 160 or exiting northbound Highway 160.
Northgate is fairly wide, with a total of five lanes — including two turning lanes — on the north side of the intersection. A so-called slip lane allows drivers heading to the highway onramp to bypass the stop sign entirely, sending them through a yield sign while they make a wide right turn. The wide turn physically allows drivers to pass through the intersection without having to slow down much.
UC Berkeley’s Transportation Injury Mapping System shows that a driver struck and severely injured a cyclist at Northgate and Del Paso boulevards in 2024.
The fourth collision occurred Jan. 11, at Arden Way and Heritage Lane; Johnson, a pedestrian, was fatally struck. The Transportation Injury Mapping System shows that a fatal two-vehicle crash left a 25-year-old motorcyclist dead at the same intersection in 2021. More recently, Larry Winters, 76, was killed while crossing the street at Arden Way and Heritage Lane in 2024.
The intersection where these three men died is right in front of the Arden Fair Mall. Including turning lanes, Heritage way is six lanes across, while Arden Way is 10 lanes across. In addition to allowing higher speeds, wide streets also expose pedestrians to dangerous traffic for longer stretches of time.
This story was originally published February 5, 2026 at 10:00 AM.
