SAN DIEGO — The City of San Diego has paid $7 million to the family of a cyclist who was severely injured while riding in a shared bike lane in Old Town.
Marc Woolf was riding his bike home from his job at the San Diego Zoo when a car backed into the road on Congress Street in Old Town. Woolf hit the car and was thrown from his bike into oncoming traffic where he was struck by a second car.
According to a 2022 civil lawsuit, Woolf was paralyzed from the neck down from the crash. He later died from sepsis, 17 months after the accident.
"He went from this young man who was excited to be a grandfather... to now tortured, He essentially lived through a slow death, and I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy," said Woolf's daughter, Denice Simmons.
"He didn't want to have somebody else to have to go through what he was going through," she added.
Both drivers involved were driving within the speed limit, the complaint states. What led to the crash was "dangerous road conditions," including:
- Restricted site lines and distances caused by physical conditions
- Insufficient red curb prohibiting parked cars
- Overgrown vegetation
- Confusing and misleading shared lane striping
- An improperly maintained light fixture which was not functioning on the night of the incident
The malfunctioning street light, in addition to the myriad alleged shortcomings, contributed to the car and Woolf "not being able to view each other until it was too late," according to the complaint.
In the wake of this lawsuit, the city has now extended the red zone along Congress to keep parked cars from blocking view corridors along the street, along with other changes.
"It's a step in the right direction," said attorney Joseph Dicks of Dicks & Workman, part of the family's legal team. "It demonstrates their willingness to listen, and we hope that they will continue to listen."
Simmons hopes that these changes will help prevent another catastrophic accident like the one that changed her family forever.
"It makes me feel like I am fulfilling what my dad wanted to see, what my father wanted to see happen, and we're seeing a safer road here in Old Town," Simmons told CBS 8.
The San Diego City Attorney's Office did not respond to our request for comment.
Cases like Woolf's aren't uncommon in San Diego. Earlier this year, the city agreed to pay nearly $3 million to the family of a man who died after he hit a city truck parked in the bike lane. In 2017, a San Diego cyclist received a $4.8 million settlement after falling on an uneven sidewalk in the Del Cerro neighborhood and suffering serious head and spinal injuries.
Dangerous road conditions also paved the way for a cyclist to receive an unprecedented $23.75 million payout after a DUI crash on Fiesta Island left a man paralyzed. He said the city failed to make the road safe for cyclists.