June 1, 2007
SFist Photo: Bikes, Cars, SFPD, Enforcement Actions
Another ticket given out in front of City Hall? It looks that way. An SFPD officer discusses the merits of traffic safety with the driver of "mom's taxi", a Porsche Cayenne minivan.
As has been discussed recently, it's seems the S.F.P.D. has some stepped-up traffic safety enforcement actions going on these days. SFist Reader Kate told us about what she saw yesterday - cops giving tickets to cyclists for not stopping when required on Market and also Page. And other parts of town, such as SOMA and the Western A, have also been mentioned as hot spots. It's all over the Internets.
It's true that the cops will sometimes focus on bikes in a certain area for enforcement actions. It seems unfair but oh well. The photo shows an action last week against car drivers who fail to yield in front of City Hall. (People, people, people! When are you going to learn to yield to the peds?) This is a hot spot for violations, hence the enforcement. Did we see cyclists blow through the crosswalk without yielding? Pretty much, but they were ignored. It seems the cops weren't too worried about bikes on that particular day in this particular place. Will the SFPD pick some time in the future to go after jaywalkers? Yep. Does this amount to "selective enforcement"? You make the call. Let's be careful out there.
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how about we all just start being nice to eachother for a change, and guess what, the laws actually try to encourage that with penalties when we are dicks.
here's the rule:
when you are in your car, stop at red lights and stop signs (before the white line for the pedestrian crossing) EVEN if you are only turning right.
when you are on a bike, same as above and STAY off the sidewalks.
when you are on foot, cross ONLY in the pedestrian marked crossing and obey the same rules as the rest of us, do not cross against a light or walk with your head down while typing a useless sms message on your phone/pda.
if we all tried this for a week, i bet we could all get along in a stellar kind of way.
what say you?
Wonderful comment, suckafree.
Also:
When you are alive, do not smoke crack or ingest heroin in any way.
Do not steal the wiring off my building or parts off my bike, or break into my car to steal my laundry.
Do not sleep with your campaign manager's pillhead wife.
Do not invade other countries and then assume the world will forgive you because you have the biggest economy and military.
Do not buy a large SUV or minivan just because you have a kid now.
If we tried this for a week, I bet our species could survive another 100 years.
Amen!
That huge crosswalk on Polk Street in front of City Hall midway between McAllister and Grove is the San Francisco equivalent of a small-town speed trap. Lazy and usually overweight policemen are always sitting in the plaza waiting to ticket drivers for a moving violation if they don't stop or slow down when there are pedestrians anywhere near the thing. It's a bit of a scam, and I'm saying that as a pedestrian who doesn't drive.
And both suckafree and Seamus, those were GREAT comments.
I saw a motorcycle cop pull over a bicycle on Market near 7th yesterday, but didn't hear why. I bet he ran the light. And I hate it when they speed across the crosswalk when pedestrians are in it. So rude. Other than that I'm all for cyclists.
Suckafree: Well said!
It's such a shame the typical response to that will be "I'm a [(a)driver (b)cyclist] and look what SF's [(a)cyclists (b)drivers] have been doing! They're a bunch of a-holes. This mess is all their fault. I hate them. So forget about getting along, I'm declaring all-out war on them."
To put it delicately, does anyone familiar with San Francisco politics think that City Hall would ever receive less enforcement than other parts of town?
I got pulled over yesterday morning on my bike at Market and 7th. I was stopped at the light, got up on my pedals when the opposing light turned red and went slowly into the intersection. About a half second before, another cyclist had passed me and a motorcycle cop went after him immediately, but as I passed them, the cop told me to pull over too. There was no cross traffic at the time, so this was strictly about rules enforcement, having nothing to do with the safety of the situation at hand.
The cop had recognized the first cyclist from a critical mass event. The other cyclist was belligerent and at first the cop thought we were friends or riding together.
I feel like the first guy was the target and I was unfairly swept up in it. I hate Critical Mass.
I wanted to read the whole article but I couldn't, because after I saw that cyclists have been getting ticketed, tears of joy sprang to my eyes.
You, jerkoffs, nice job saving the planet. Now try obeying traffic laws so I don't mow your asses down and spend 15 years in prison for something that was your fault.
how about some fining love for those wild and wacky cab drivers? i've nearly been mowed down by a few, and i saw one the other day run a red and stop less than an inch from an elderly man in the crosswalk. (and yes, i did report the taxi's plate to the cops and the taxi company, for all the good that'll do.)
it's not as if you can ever find a cab in this town anyway. (although, what kind of san franciscan takes a cab anywhere?)
Here is my rule of thumb for dealing with motorcycle cops: Politely accept the ticket. Do nothing memorable. Then go to your arraignment. It could be dismissed on the spot.
Go to court and request a formal arraignment, or just show up on the date on the ticket. At this point you're not even giving up traffic school or pleading not guilty, it is just a formal step to do so.
I did this in our fair city and was shocked to see that most people who showed up for arraignment, myself included, had their tickets dismissed on the spot. This was probably 20 of the 30 people in the room. Despite everything I had researched on traffic violations (multiple books and scouring the internet), I'd never seen any mention of dismissal at arraignment.
My suspicion is that the city doesn't prosecute petty motor pool violations, or the motor pool cops have poor paperwork, or both. Let our city's lax law enforcement work for YOU!
Yeah, 1000 pedestians hit and injured every year by careless automobile drivers in this city and it is the *pedestrians* that are the problem. Riiiiight.
I am glad to finally see some enforcement of the agressive and dangerous driving I see every single day on my three block walk from BART to work in SOMA. Every day I see some car violate pedestrian right-of-way.
I would like to know if one single person has been killed in this city from a bike hitting them? How many people are killed by cars? When you are riding a bike you don't have the luxury of having a moter to bring you back up to speed after a stop. I say ticket bikes that totally blow through stop signs or don't yeld to peds, but ticketing bikes on Page St for not coming to a complete stop at every stop sign is a joke.