A 59-year-old woman and her dog were killed yesterday after being struck by a car while crossing Novato Boulevard near Our Lady of Loretto School, and as of this morning her identity had not been released. The Novato Police Department responded to the crash around 9 PM at Novato Boulevard and St. Paul Circle, where first responders rushed the woman to the hospital. She died there from her injuries, and her dog died at the scene.
The driver, an 18-year-old man, remained at the scene and cooperated with the investigation, according to KRON4. Police said impairment does not appear to be a factor in the deadly crash. Novato Boulevard was closed between McClay Road and Grant Avenue while the department's Traffic Investigation Team and Crime Scene Investigations unit processed the scene, and the Marin County Sheriff's Office Coroner Division took the lead on the death investigation, as reported by Patch. The street reopened to traffic by Tuesday morning.
A Corridor With a History of Fatal Crashes
This is not the first deadly pedestrian crash on this stretch of road. In January 2018, a 56-year-old Novato resident suffered traumatic head injuries and died after being struck by an eastbound vehicle in the 1900 block of Novato Boulevard, between Simmons Lane and McClay Road, Patch reported at the time. The Marin Countywide Local Road Safety Plan has since flagged Novato Boulevard and San Marin Drive as high-collision arterial corridors that see recurring clusters of severe crashes, a designation Hoodline detailed in its coverage of a fatal teen DUI crash earlier this year on the same corridor.
A 2015 municipal transportation assessment for the City of Novato had already identified several intersections along the boulevard — including McClay Road, Grant Avenue, and Simmons Lane — as priority locations for pedestrian crossing enhancements and refuge areas, citing gaps in crossing safety. More recently, the city announced that construction advertisement for the multi-agency Novato Boulevard Improvements Project is slated for mid-2026, aiming to modernize utilities while adding pedestrian, cyclist, and motorist safety features along the corridor in a single combined timeline.
Crash Came Days After School-Zone Safety Warning
The fatal crash happened less than two weeks after the Novato Police Department issued a formal traffic advisory urging drivers to slow down around school zones and keep crosswalks clear as students returned for the new school year, an outreach effort that specifically named safety near educational facilities like Our Lady of Loretto School. Under California Vehicle Code Section 21950, drivers are legally required to yield the right-of-way and reduce speed for pedestrians at marked or unmarked intersection crosswalks, while pedestrians also carry a duty not to step into traffic in a way that creates an immediate hazard, according to legal guidance from Compass Law. It remains unclear whether the point of impact fell within a marked or unmarked crosswalk at the St. Paul Circle intersection.
California's Freedom to Walk Act also limits when officers can stop or cite pedestrians for crossing outside a crosswalk, applying only when a reasonably careful person would recognize an immediate danger of collision with a moving vehicle, per Freedman Law. The Transportation Authority of Marin adopted its Vision Zero policy in 2024, setting a goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and severe injuries on Marin County roads entirely by 2050. Statewide, California recorded 4,061 traffic fatalities and 163,848 police-reported fatal or injury crashes in 2023, according to figures compiled by the California Office of Traffic Safety and UC Berkeley SafeTREC and cited by GJEL.
Monday's crash marks the second fatal pedestrian collision in Novato this summer that Hoodline has covered, following a pre-dawn death near a 101 offramp in July that also involved a driver who stayed to cooperate with investigators. Police have not released further details on the woman's identity or the exact circumstances of Monday's crash as the coroner's investigation continues.
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