An Elderly Driver Killed A Family Of Four — What Happened Next Is Pure San Francisco

[rangerrebew]

An Elderly Driver Killed A Family Of Four — What Happened Next Is Pure San Francisco
 
Daily Caller News Foundation logo
 
Jack Cowhick
Contributor
February 16, 2026
 
An elderly woman will likely face only probation and keep her license after allegedly killing a family of four while driving, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.

Prosecutors said Mary Fong Lau, 80, crashed into a West Portal bus stop in March 2024 and killed the family of four, who were waiting to go to the San Francisco zoo according to local Bay Area outlet KPIX, a CBS affiliate. A San Francisco Superior Court judge said Lau’s sentence would “likely be two to three years of probation,” the Chronicle reported. (RELATED: 49ers’ Keion White Shot Just Hours After Super Bowl LX)
 
Lau changed her plea from “not guilty” to “no contest” on Friday, according to court records.

Seven months after the deadly crash, then-Democratic San Francisco Mayor London Breed and San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Director of Transportation Jeffrey Tumlin held a ceremony celebrating the installation of “safety upgrades,” referring to several traffic bollards around the West Portal bus stop. SFMTA had a budget of over $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2024.

https://dailycaller.com/2026/02/16/elderly-driver-family-san-francisco/

[PeteS in CA]

I know California- and San-Francisco-bashing is popular among conservatives, but SF cannot go outside or beyond CA's vehicle code when it comes to vehicular deaths, and CA is all but certainly far from unique among US states in handling vehicle-caused deaths more leniently than gun- or knife- or rock-caused deaths.

[libertybele]

Very sad indeed.  Keep her license at 80 and a crash?  I find that questionable.

As we age, it is difficult to give up the independence that a driver's license affords. We don't drive a whole lot anymore and I have learned to take the back roads and go only very short distances. We've learned to just stay home (I haven't hit 70 yet)  Anywhere of any distance that I need to go, my daughter drives.

My brother at 31 was killed by a 78 year old woman; he was riding a bicycle and she didn't even know that she had hit him and just kept on going .... the heartbreak our family has experienced never goes away.