SFPD

At the press conference yesterday to announce the plea deal between prosecutors and Chris Bucchere in the death of Sutchi Hui, SF District Attorney George Gascón said that his "goal is to send a message" to cyclists.

Last month, we asked for photos of public servants parking obnoxiously, and our readers delivered. Here are some select snapshots of city vehicles parked egregiously without an emergency in sight.

While waiting at a bus stop on Third Street this weekend, Streetsblog reader Mike Sonn tweeted about his frustration with the nearly non-existent enforcement of bus-only lanes. Watching drivers fill up the few traffic lanes set aside for transit with impunity is an everyday part of riding Muni in San Francisco, where ensuring that marked transit lanes are actually used for transit just doesn't seem to be a priority for police.

Members of the SF Police Commission, a civilian body charged with police oversight, urged SFPD officials at a hearing last week to focus their traffic enforcement efforts on the greatest danger facing people walking: driver violations.

As rampant as illegal parking is in San Francisco, there's one group of drivers who are the champs when it comes to finding the most egregious places to leave their vehicles: police officers, mail truck drivers, and other public servants who use city vehicles.

SF District Attorney George Gascón and SFPD Traffic Company Commander Mikail Ali held a press conference last Thursday to bring attention to distracted driving, since April is officially National Distracted Driving Awareness Month.

Officers with the SF Police Department have recently been spotted wagging their fingers at bicycle riders for neglecting to stop at a stop sign on northbound Harrison Street at 15th Street, where the "stop" line doesn't run through the bike lane like they normally do at intersections.

A driver hit and killed 69-year-old Hector Arana on Wednesday morning at 6:26 a.m. on six-lane San Jose Avenue in the Outer Mission neighborhood. According to reports, the driver was headed northbound in the direction of the nearby 280 freeway, when he hit Arana near the intersection of Liebig Street, where Google Maps shows legal but unmarked crosswalks.

BART police had some welcome news for Bay Area cyclists this week: An undercover sting led to the arrest of an alleged thief in possession of ten bikes and more than 100 bike parts. It's a nice follow-up to the SFPD's arrest last July of a thief who had 114 stolen bicycles.