Child driver injures woman in East Oakland crosswalk crash

A child under 10 was behind the wheel of a car in East Oakland on Thursday morning when the vehicle struck another car and then a woman walking her dog in a crosswalk, leaving her critically injured. Police said two children younger than 10 were inside the car, and both the driver and the child passenger were hurt.

The crash happened around 9:30 a.m. at 35th and Mangels avenues in the Barlett neighborhood of East Oakland. Oakland police said the vehicle hit another car before the driver lost control and struck the pedestrian, then crashed into a wall and a fence.

The woman was in the crosswalk when she was hit, turning a routine walk into a life-threatening emergency in a neighborhood where pedestrians depend on marked crossings to move safely through traffic. Police said the child behind the wheel was one of two children in the vehicle, underscoring how quickly an accessible car can become a danger when adults do not keep keys and vehicles out of reach.

The case puts a sharp focus on prevention inside the home, where the first line of protection is often not a traffic law but a supervision decision. If a child can reach the keys, enter the vehicle and start moving on a city street, the failure is not just a momentary lapse. It is a chain of unsecured access that can end in a crosswalk collision before anyone has time to intervene.

The injuries extended beyond the woman in the crosswalk. Police said the child driver and the other child in the car were also hurt, adding another layer of harm to a crash that began with an inaccessible vehicle becoming available to children far too young to be behind the wheel. The scene at 35th and Mangels avenues, where a car struck another vehicle, then a pedestrian and finally a wall and fence, leaves a stark record of how fast that kind of failure can spill into the street.