CONCORD — Rachna Sharma often helped shepherd students through the four-way intersection where children navigate between Concord Child Care and the handful of other classrooms near Meadow Homes Park as neighborhood traffic swells.
But she was walking alone during a lunch break in September of 2023 when an on-duty Concord cop stopped at Detroit Avenue, turned left and struck the 63-year-old while she was using the bright yellow crosswalk to reach Sunshine Drive.
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The single-digit-speed collision two years ago required Sharma, a Concord resident, to undergo reconstructive knee surgery that sidelined her from work for 10 months, according to court records, and she’s still healing after the accident left her unable to walk or lift the weight of a toddler – injuries that ultimately forced the preschool to terminate her job. In addition to what her lawyers estimate is more than $200,000 in past and future medical bills, Sharma’s also facing nearly a half-million dollars in lost wages.
She sued last summer, and Concord officials will finalize paperwork to compensate her with a yet-undisclosed amount for physical and emotional suffering by Sept. 30 – a court-ordered deadline to settle claims that the preschool teacher’s injuries were caused by Officer Holly Riordan’s negligence behind the wheel of a police-issued Ford Explorer.
Michael Goforth, Sharma’s attorney, said the settlement provides a win for police and city accountability, as well as a sense of closure following months of discovery and mediation that will “enable my client to go on with her life.”
“No amount of money is going to undo what happened, but this is going to help my client move forward,” Goforth said over the phone this week, adding that Sharma is still coping with the emotional toll of the accident, including flashbacks that have prevented her from driving or even venturing far from home since she was struck by the police vehicle’s metal-enforced bumper.
Even though the settlement is not an admission of fault, he said the police report concluded that Officer Holly Riordan was 100% responsible. “None of this is about Concord. It’s just about a mistake that somebody who worked for the police made, and they ended up having to pay for the mistake, which they should.”
Goforth, who’s been practicing law for 45 years, said it was an unfortunate mistake that Riordan didn’t see Sharma in time to prevent the collision, especially as the preschool teacher was the breadwinner of her family. But it’s far from uncommon.
“You just can’t trust anyone when you’re a pedestrian – that goes for drivers, too,” Goforth said, “because a lot of people just aren’t watching where they’re going.”
The city of Concord is expected to finalize a settlement for a Sept. 2023 collision at the intersection of Detroit Avenue and Sunshine Drive, where an on-duty police officer struck a pedestrian in the marked crosswalk.
Settlements have increasingly resulted in payouts of hundreds of thousands of dollars for clients who sustain severe injuries, both nationwide and across California. The payouts often exceed a million dollars when similar pedestrian-vehicle collisions turn catastrophic.
The SF Standard reported in late 2024 that roughly 150 people had filed claims that they were hit by a municipal vehicle while walking or biking in the city within the past five years – averaging about 30 collisions annually. San Francisco has so far spent more than $40 million settling all but a dozen of those claims.
One San Francisco-based personal injury law firm with offices in Campbell and Pleasanton secured more than $2 million, on average, in settlements for three different pedestrian-vehicle collisions in crosswalks located in Alameda, Santa Clara County and San Joaquin counties.
Concord officials declined to comment on the still-pending litigation. But Colleen Awad, the city’s community relations manager, said staff is committed to its ongoing efforts to improve pedestrian safety on all public streets.
In recent years, transportation and other Concord infrastructure projects have tackled millions of dollars worth of improvements on other streets within the Monument Corridor, adjacent to the intersection where Sharma was hit by Officer Riordan. Those funds have flowed towards pavement maintenance, striping restoration and construction of new bicycle-pedestrian lanes, in addition to coordinated signal controls and a fiber optic-powered traffic management system. The council also approved a plan in August to reduce speed limits along 20 different streets.
Brenda Brown, executive director of Concord Child Care, where Sharma worked for more than 20 years, said it was a difficult but necessary decision to let the preschool teacher go 10 months after the accident.
“She worked hard to try to make it back,” said Brown. “She should be compensated for the losses that she had and the trauma that she had to experience.”
While Brown is grateful that no children were with Sharma during her break from work — pre-empting an even more tragic ending to the collision — she said the intersection where the accident happened is not even the most problematic in a corridor that becomes a “disaster zone” of jaywalking pedestrians and speeding motorists during school pick-up and drop-off.
“There was, to me, no reason for a police officer, especially, to run over somebody in the crosswalk,” Brown added. “It’s not like she had lights and sirens or anything, to my knowledge.”
But Goforth said he sees accidents like this one happen all the time, emphasizing that there’s no universal solution to ensure that drivers’ eyes stay focused on the road and safely yield for pedestrians, who have the legal right-of-way within marked or unmarked crosswalks.
“Humans make mistakes – that’s what we do,” Goforth said. “Sometimes, it’s called negligence.”