Stolen car crashes head-on into Muni bus near Lake Merced, injuring two

A stolen-car chase ended in a head-on collision with a Muni bus near Lake Merced, sending the bus driver and the suspect to the hospital and forcing firefighters to use the Jaws of Life to pull the car’s driver from the wreckage.

Police first responded at 9:53 p.m. to a stolen-vehicle report in the area of Hayes and Fillmore streets, where a woman told officers her husband’s car had been stolen while he was inside a business. Shortly after 10:15 p.m., officers spotted the stolen car on Skyline Boulevard and tried to stop it, police said. The driver sped away, committed multiple traffic violations and then struck a Muni bus in the 500 block of John Muir Drive near Lake Merced before hitting two unoccupied cars.

The San Francisco Fire Department said the crash happened around 10:18 p.m. at 595 John Muir Drive. Fire crews used hydraulic rescue tools to extricate the driver from the stolen car. The driver of the stolen vehicle suffered moderate to major injuries, while the Muni bus driver had minor injuries and was taken to a hospital for further evaluation. Police said no one was aboard the bus besides the driver, and both the bus driver and the suspect were expected to survive.

The collision turned a late-night police pursuit into a broader public-safety question for San Francisco, where vehicle chases are supposed to be limited. City policy summaries say officers may pursue only when they suspect a violent felony or believe a suspect poses an immediate risk to public safety. Another policy summary says pursuits are allowed when officers have reasonable suspicion that a person committed, is committing or is likely to commit a felony or violent misdemeanor.

That context matters because San Francisco’s 2025 annual pursuit report logged 156 pursuits last year, with driving or taking a vehicle without consent listed as the most common reason. The Lake Merced crash now fits squarely into that pattern: a stolen-vehicle case that escalated across city streets and ended with injuries, damaged vehicles and a Muni bus caught in the path.

The crash also hit a busy part of the southwest city, near the Lake Merced West area around 520 and 595 John Muir Drive, where city documents describe an roughly 11-acre public project site. In a corridor where Muni collisions are tracked as a formal safety metric, measured per 100,000 vehicle miles traveled, the wreck added another stark reminder of how quickly a pursuit can spill onto transit riders, operators and nearby drivers.

Police were still not releasing the suspect’s name. Anyone with information was asked to call the San Francisco Police Department tip line at (415) 575-4444.