The first call to San Francisco police came in Tuesday at 12:47 p.m. -- a shiny black Honda Pilot had just plowed into another vehicle at Larkin Street and Golden Gate Avenue near Civic Center.
It's the kind of routine vehicle accident that police hear about innumerable times every day.
But this smashup was not routine. And it was no accident.
Within minutes, the driver of the Pilot would speed into the hills straddling the Western Addition and Pacific Heights, ripping back and forth through a 15-square-block area like a ripsaw on four wheels, leaping curbs, cutting corners and tearing the wrong way through traffic.