A beloved older brother was hit by a car and killed on one of Sacramento’s deadliest roads

Aaron Ward, a man so generous that he once gave a cigarette to a stranger when two cigarettes were just about all he owned, was hit by a car and killed in south Sacramento Jan. 26. He was 40.

The fatal Meadowview crash occurred shortly after 6 p.m. at the intersection of Florin Road and Woodbine Avenue. In a 2023 report, the city identified the stretch of Florin between 24th Street and Munson Way as one of the five deadliest one-mile corridors in the city.

Within the immediate vicinity of the crash that killed Ward, UC Berkeley’s Transportation Injury Mapping System shows that between 2012 and 2022, at least three people were seriously injured while walking or biking.

In 2014, a driver severely injured a pedestrian who was crossing Florin Road just one block west of Woodbine Avenue. Another pedestrian was severely injured in 2016 when he was hit by a car one block east of Woodbine. In 2021, a cyclist was severely injured on Florin Road 200 yards away from the fatal January crash.

Sacramento has secured funding for the final design and implementation of safety-enhancing improvements to the one-mile segment of Florin that would help slow traffic, though the high speed limit will remain. The city plans to set off the bike lanes with plastic posts, which would narrow the space for cars and thus coax drivers to slow down. New crossings will be installed. The timing of traffic signals will also shift to make drivers stop more frequently.

Under the current plan, Florin would still have two lanes traveling in each direction, and the street would keep its posted 40 mph speed limit. A study published in Accident Analysis & Prevention found that if a car traveling at 40.6 mph strikes a pedestrian, the risk that the victim will die is 50%.

Construction on underground infrastructure for crossings with signals included in the project has already begun. City spokeswoman Gabby Miller said installation of the new signals may begin in the fall of 2025. Above-ground work, including striping for bike lane changes, will begin this year after the rainy season ends.

Presently, the west- and east-bound bike lanes on the most dangerous part of Florin Road remain both unprotected and inconsistent, sometimes appearing or disappearing partway through a block.

In 2017, Sacramento announced a “Vision Zero” pledge to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2027. Other cities, including Oslo, Norway and Hoboken, New Jersey have demonstrated that traffic fatalities and serious injuries are almost always preventable. Fast Company reported that Oslo — which had a population of around 700,000 — saw no traffic fatalities at all in 2021. Sacramento — with almost 200,000 fewer residents — lost 25 pedestrians and one cyclist that year.

The month that Ward died, Hoboken announced that it had gone seven years without a traffic death.

Unlike Oslo and Hoboken, Sacramento has yet to eliminate traffic fatalities. Between the year of the Vision Zero announcement and 2022, Berkeley’s Transportation Injury Mapping System counted at least 355 car crash deaths in the city.

Of the dead, 22 were riding their bikes and 142 were pedestrians like Ward. The Sacramento Police Department did not release basic information about the crash that killed Ward, but he was fatally struck at an intersection with a stoplight, a crosswalk and a posted speed limit of 40 mph.

He was crossing the street to get home.

A difficult life, full of love

Aaron Matthew Ward was born on Christmas Day in 1983 in a helicopter en route to the hospital, his sister said. During the pregnancy, his mother, Debbie, had developed a serious blood pressure condition, preeclampsia. Ward’s emergency birth was three months premature.

Five years later, Debbie gave birth to Sara. From an early age, the boy took great pride in being an older brother.

Ward and his sister — now Sara Salde, a first-grade teacher — spent much of their childhood in a small house with a big backyard. They were confronted with a terrible loss as young children: Their father, Frank, died when Ward was 9 and Salde was just 4.

Still, their Del Paso Heights home is where Ward was the happiest, Salde said. The boy walked his little sister home from school every day. In the yard, the pair would swing on their janky swingset or throw mud patties at the side of a metal shed to see whose would slide down the fastest.

They moved with their mother to Rosemont when Ward was in his late teens. In 2008, when he was just 24, Ward received a frightening diagnosis: The young man had brain cancer. Though doctors treated the cancer and it went into remission, he had lasting brain damage that made forming new memories an enormous hurdle.

“My sweet brother,” Salde said, was dealt “the worst hand of cards.”

Throughout all his struggles, Salde said, Ward maintained a spirit of generosity and kindness. She recalled that about four years ago, she and her brother were walking to a doctor’s appointment downtown, at a time when “he had absolutely nothing” except the few items she bought for him.

“He has,” Salde said, “like, literally, two cigarettes — and that’s it — to his name.”

They passed a homeless man on the street, and Ward said, “‘What’s up, man? Do you want a cigarette?’ And the guy just looked so elated that somebody would, A) talk to him, or B) even offer him a cigarette. And then Aaron goes and lights it for him.”

Salde cherishes the memory. Her brother had almost nothing to give, but he still gave something.

He found a community to help keep him safe

Ward had been homeless on and off, and he contended with alcoholism, but Salde said his life had stabilized in the last few years. He had moved into a small, supportive group home just north of Florin Road with up to seven other residents.

Ward was a fixture in his neighborhood, where a network of community members knew he had a disability and looked out for him. Because he had lived in Sacramento for his entire life, he could rely on his long-term memory of the city. Salde, who slipped into the present tense as she talked about her older brother, said Ward “knows that light rail system like the back of his hand.” In the capital, he could take the long, rambling walks he loved.

Salde moved to Las Vegas a decade ago, but the siblings remained close. Over the past few years, Ward would call his sister at least once a week, and she would drop whatever she was doing to answer. He still had to be reminded of their mother’s death in 2018, and he would forget that he now has a baby niece, Davy.

This didn’t faze Salde: They loved each other. Because of the way her brother’s brain worked, she liked to say over and over again that she loved him, to make sure “it sticks in his head.”

And so, before Ward was killed on one of Sacramento’s most dangerous roads, the brother and sister would repeatedly tell each other “I love you” throughout every phone call, every interaction. They would say it even more times before hanging up the phone.

I love you, they said back and forth. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Aaron Matthew Ward

Brother, uncle and lifelong Sacramento resident.

Age: 40

Died: Jan. 26, 2024. He was struck by a car at Florin Road and Woodbine Avenue while he was walking home.

Survived by: Sister Sara Salde and niece Davy.