Traffic Enforcement

In an emotionally-charged discussion, the dangers of walking on San Francisco's streets took center stage at yesterday's Board of Supervisors meeting, the first since an alarming number of San Franciscans were injured and killed by drivers over the holiday season.

In what could be a departure from the SF Police Department's usual failure to penalize reckless driving, officers have arrested two of the five motorists who have killed people on San Francisco streets since December 20.

A man in a wheelchair, reportedly in his 20s, was killed by a driver at Market Street and Octavia Boulevard around midnight last night. SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza said the crash is still under investigation, but that driver appears to have been heading south on Octavia at the entrance of the Central Freeway, where witnesses said the victim was crossing against the light. The man is the 13th known pedestrian to be killed by a driver in SF this year.

Yesterday evening I returned to the Wiggle, where reports continue of SFPD officers targeting bicycle commuters rolling stop signs. To my surprise, there were no police to be found during their typical shift at about 6:45 p.m., but I did find a driver double-parked right behind the crosswalk on Waller and Steiner Streets. In the exact same spot where officers can usually be spotted admonishing bike commuters for doing an "Idaho stop," the driver of this car pretty much put every passerby in danger for at least the ten minutes I was there, and faced no consequences.

Bicycle commuters on the Wiggle continue to be confronted by SFPD officers posted at intersections issuing warnings and tickets for what police deem to be dangerous violations of stop sign laws. Police claim they're obligated to respond to complaints from neighbors who apparently see the behavior as a threat to public safety.

Anyone who keeps track of the daily reports that come out of the SFPD's press office might be surprised to learn that the department has a policy of using the term "collision" -- not "accident" -- when referring to traffic crashes. That's because, in practice, the SFPD's top brass and press officers use "accident" as their term of choice, while "collision" is used only occasionally.

As if Geary and Masonic wasn't already hostile enough to pedestrians, here's an example of street dysfunction exacerbated by freight traffic at the newly-opened CityTarget. Winston Parsons happened upon a delivery truck driver setting up shop in a crosswalk and, he said, impeding buses on the 43-Masonic.

With the spotlight turned on the dangers and dysfunction that result from the sorry state of double-parking enforcement in San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee has staked out a position on the matter that seems to show a tone-deaf windshield perspective on city streets more than an actual commitment to making them safer.

When Sarah Harling was hospitalized by a minivan driver who made a left turn into her at a stop sign intersection, she says the SFPD officer who filed the police report included a fabricated statement from her claiming that she "approached the stop sign without stopping."