She was collateral damage from a police chase. Can S.F. implement Prop. E to avoid more stories like hers?

A vehicle pursued by San Francisco police hit the car Ciara Keegan was driving head-on on Dec. 7 in Oakland.

Ciara Keegan’s car was totaled in a head-on collision with a vehicle being chased by San Francisco police.

On the afternoon of Dec. 7, Ciara Keegan left her job in the East Bay and began the drive home to San Francisco. She was talking to her boyfriend on her car’s speakerphone, making dinner plans, when she saw a black Nissan Infiniti heading straight for her. The car skidded out of its lane and hit her Honda CRV head-on.

The impact was terrifying. Images posted on social media by a passerby showed the remains of the two cars, with wreckage spread across the road, glass and debris everywhere.

Miraculously, Keegan was able to walk away from her totaled car. Officers from the San Francisco Police Department sat her in the back of a cruiser to wait for an ambulance. The vehicle that hit her began smoking and making popping noises nearby. Soon, it burst into flames.

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“Keegan appeared to not only be in discomfort, but serious pain as she wrapped her arms around herself and continued to cry and yell in pain,” the police report said. She was transported to Highland Hospital, Oakland’s primary trauma center.

The driver who’d hit Keegan was fleeing officers who started the pursuit in San Francisco’s Chinatown after a man in a cell phone repair shop was mugged at........

© San Francisco Chronicle