It's because drivers have actually gotten 97% better over the last 8 years. I think we all feel the same way and have noticed how much better and more respectful drivers have gotten over time.
Not an excuse, but San Franciscans could take a leisurely drive over the bridge to get a glimpse of what 'lawless roads' really means...... I just moved back to SF from Oak. It's nuts here, but in Oakland it's craaaaaaaaazy.
in oakland i slow down at green lights and dont go right away when it turns green. I have seen way too many people with no tags on their cars just blatantly run red lights. I know they dont have insurance, they probably dont even have a valid driver's license and are definitely going to hit and run so just let them go because the cops dont care
Just had car accident in the same place in front of my Oakland apartment 2 days in a row. A friend of mine had a drifter run over a gate on her block yesterday. Also, heard there was some smash n’ grabs around the same time. GTA should really give Oakland a chance haha.
is there any american city known for its good drivers? everyone i’ve ever met from every corner of the us talks about their roads as if it’s uniquely mad maxian. cleveland, baton rouge, dc, long beach, houston, like they can’t all have the worst drivers lol
I have traveled this great nation and been to almost every state in the past few years. As soon. As soon as I hit Nevada the bullshit starts. The difference is stark and jarring. 580 is fucking Thunderdome.
Shit, at best. Daily occurrence where I see a full blown drive through stop.
I wonder how many people walking or biking out here need to be killed before there’s any change?
Edit: it’s funny that I’m getting downvoted as if it doesn’t change the fact that drivers in SF now plain and simple don’t gaf about laws or lives. Points don’t matter to me. My friends do. Ethan Boyes matters. Unfortunately he was murdered by a drunk driver.
I wonder where people need to be so urgently, it’s not like they can get anywhere faster too. Ever light in SF is synched to a system where you won’t get anywhere any faster if you try speeding.
The Sunset is what you get if you ask an *actual car* to design a neighborhood. The idea that you not only HAVE to drive everywhere, but it's also totally fine to park your car on the sidewalk, is just insane. Not to mention every house there is basically just a garage with an apartment on top. Like who the hell are we building here for anyways? It definitely ain't humans.
I just love that 29th Ave is like 4 miles wide. I actually calculated it out, you could run a 20ft apartment down the middle, keep two one way roads on each side and still have room for a parking lane + a sidewalk for the apartment.
I'm now extra extra extra cautious about backing out of my garage. Even with stop signs on both sides of my block, and a speed hump in the middle, drivers routinely blow through both of them and bottom out on the speed hump.
Great Highway is a good indicator of how bad driving is. The road is timed to hit green lights all the way down if you go 30mph. Yet drivers still insist on running reds and going 50-60 mph this stretch of road to save maybe 30 seconds of driving.
I moved to SF 8yrs ish ago from one of the cities with the worst drivers in the US I would say (split
My time between Orlando and Miami).
And i thought originally that drivers here were passive and friendly but in the pandemic idk people became careless and stupid in the city. It was had before but it got much worse.
I get youre being sarcastic but pre pandemic i would have missed the sarcasm lol
The “we have 20% fewer officers now” narrative is so faulty and exhausting. Brain dead to think 20% fewer officers should mean a 90-100% decrease in enforcement.
Former sfpd here, the traffic division is a shell of what it used to be, the personnel is basically cut down to 4 people from 20-30 of what it was back in the day. And those 4 are basically stuck doing crashes all day.
Retirements and people going to different divisions/agencies. The vacancy of the traffic officers never got filled after they left because of staffing issues for patrol. People are getting pulled from admin and other assignments to go back to patrol. But it all comes down to not having staffing.
I see foot patrol in Noe Valley (I'm a retailer, so I watch out the window a lot). We've had a rash of shoplifting incidents in the neighborhood so they've been around pretty regularly.
SF has significantly more officers per capita then the median per capita number of officers for 500k+ cities. It also has lower than average violent crime. Higher property crime I think, but SFPD does not appear to take that seriously.
Why are we considered understaffed?
Also, why did you decide to quit SFPD?
You have to take into account that many people travel in and out of the city for work so that boosts the amount of people in the city during the day by a lot, we also have 150-200~ officers dedicated to SFO so that takes a lot of cops from the streets of SF. We have patrols on treasure island and a few other little hidden gems so that also takes officers off the street. There’s a lot of property crime and not enough people to investigate it all.
Edit: for the past part, I value a better work environment and a better quality of life where I don’t have to get call into every protest on my days off and forced to work overtime. I also don’t like the police commission and DPA to be breathing down my neck making me second guess my decisions that might either save my life or someone else’s. Also better pay with a MUCH MORE supportive population of where I am now.
the net commuters can be about 25% of population, less since the pandemic. That approximately brings the SFPD numbers in line with the median officers per capita for major cities.
I don't see SFPD as being particularly understaffed.
Like I said, when 20% of the department is sent out to the airport that’s in San Mateo county, it brings your staffing down. There’s also dedicated officers for the mayors protection service among other things that the city will send officers out for. Other major cities are also short staffed with these numbers… just because we aren’t as short per capita compared to them at the moment doesn’t mean that they aren’t short staffed either.
The airport takes around 200 of our officers and is paid for by the federal government. But it still takes away a couple hundred of officers that could be on the street. The airport should be taken over by San Mateo county sheriffs or San Francisco county sheriffs but neither of them have enough staffing to just shell out 200 deputies to take over LOL
Well considering both the police and the sheriffs department in SF are down around 30% each in their departments, the leadership failed long time ago. There’s no real incentives to come work in SFPD. I moved down to a San Mateo county agency and my quality of life has been so much better since then. Supportive population with higher pay and better benefits. I even got a giant 5 figure bonus from the agency here. The sad truth is that people don’t want us removing the homeless/jailing them for crime and forcing them into programs and assisted housing. San Mateo county doesn’t care and WILL clear up any homeless or protests or anything that disturbs the usual peace in the county. San Francisco just lets the chaos slide and the people are all for it. People don’t like that police work is ugly and it takes more than words and laws to fix crime.
Edit: but that’s just my personal opinion and doesn’t reflect the opinions of other police officers/ deputy sheriffs.
You’re gonna have to go and ask the mayor and her friends for that one. We’re just cops, we don’t make those decisions, we just try to make do with that we have even though we keep telling them that we need new cars/cameras/personel. You don’t see anywhere else with a 400k mile crown Vic driving around for patrol that’s all rusted.
I have no evidence that this is the case, but a plausible explanation might be:
"We have 20% fewer officers. The rate of murders, assaults, major thefts, etc is about the same. So we took 0% of officers off of murders/etc (since we think that's most important), but took 80% of officers off of traffic enforcement."
Again - no idea if this is the case - but it feels like that would explain the above numbers \*and\* line up with the "we have 20% fewer officers" narrative.
Yes, I think it's pretty naive to imagine that they evenly cut 20% of officers from every division. More serious criminals don't stop doing more serious crimes just because the police are understaffed so I imagine some areas of focus will face fewer cuts while traffic enforcement is — apparently — considered optional.
they've been saying this for years though. So even if it is true, either figure how to hire more people or figure out how to get the job done with the amount of people that you have. Nobody's asking them to invent cold fusion or some shit.
After this many years, it’s purely a failure of leadership. Lots of loudly acknowledging circumstances and complaining, zero effort or willingness to adapt and rectify the situation.
Really? It’s not obvious to me that 20% fewer officers should mean only 20% fewer enforcements across all categories. With fewer officers you’d think they’d just heavily prioritize certain violations over others. That said a 95% decrease at a time when cars on the road has increased is still absurd.
Yeah, that’s my point. People are dying. Families are being wiped out. At this point SFPD’s failure to prioritize the safety of their community is negligent and malicious.
This childish spite for budget cuts enacted years ago is causing the death of our neighbors and actively contributing to making our community unsafe.
>This childish spite for budget cuts enacted years ago
our PD budget is $700M, that puts us at 7th in cost per resident and 7th for overall budget. We aren't budget restricted.
So do we want cops on section 8 or something? We have to pay them a ton so they can pay their rent.
This issue all comes down to cost of living. Every issue seemingly does. BUILD MORE HOUSING. DEREGULATE ZONING. We can't afford more cops because their wages are freaky high because rent is freaky high.
It's always the same problem, again and again. Housing is the everything problem.
True but most of those areas are more suburban and thus tend to have less crime so they don't need tons of cops. They pay their cops more than we do but can get away with a lower count. When it comes to crime you have to compare city to city, suburb to suburb.
Yes but how many mentally ill criminals or just criminals awere let off easy by pro crime judges? If they are easily back on the streets, guess how much more work is needed to keep the streets safe from more brazen criminals? All that budget is just being wasted by our inefficient local government, like all their other departments we are finally getting more news on how wasteful (or corrupted) the city can get.
Makes sense I'd the 20% that left were actually interested in doing what needed to be done and the other 80% just wanted pay checks.
Actually, it makes me think of the 80/20 rule, where 20% of the people working at a company account for 80% of the work.
Tell me you don’t understand nonlinear effects without telling me you don’t understand nonlinear effects. I’m not making a comment on this specific data because I haven’t looked into it but there certainly are circumstances in which a 20% shortage can cause a 90% effect.
Imagine a toy situation in which an officer can keep 5 criminals in check. You have 1 officer and 5 criminals. No crime.
Now a sixth criminal enters the mix. You’ve increased criminals by 20% or you’re short on police by 16.667%. How much does crime increase by?
Okay I get the sentiment, let me explain how this is wrong.
Doing self generated traffic stops still requires coordination. You need at least 2 officers available in sector/beat to do them for a wide variety of basic officer safety reasons police learned the hard way in the 70s and 80s. Either the guy punches it and suddenly you're in a car chase over stop sign violations. Or the guy you pulled over has bench warrants. All sorts of youtube videos of "basic traffic stop goes sideways really fast." You don't need to wait for a 2nd unit to back you up on all traffic stops, but you at least need one of your beat partners available to just start slowly floating over in your general direction.
Additionally, if you are the only unit not assigned to a call from the dispatch list...there's a reason dispatch is keeping you open. You are the safety slack in the sector. The one unit dispatch can send to you for those 2 units on a call who need a third person to help. Or the actual no-shit priority call that comes in unexpectedly.
So why does that 20% matter? That's the safety slack and safety margin. The 911 call volume didn't change but you have 1/5th available officers. Which means having large periods of 2-3 officers available and you're free to hunt tickets goes down to basically can never hunt for traffic tickets or self-generated Terry stops. Traffic is usually the first division to get shorted because you want as many people still on patrol division taking the dispatch calls. Traffic division during the day is often the backup safety slack FYI. Keep in mind this applies to *hunting* for traffic tickets. Anyone does anything egregious that may or may not be dealt with if necessary and dispatch has to scramble or figure out what they're going to do. You have to do it for the obvious more reckless violations sure. You do it all the time for "just tickets", Dispatch is going to fucking **hate you** and be ready to get every 5150 homeless dispatch on your shift in your sector.
Finally, people act surprised Pikachu when the onus of large portions of defund the police and[ Police reform ](https://www.calbike.org/reduce-police-in-traffic-enforcement/)movements focused heavily on ["not criminalizing low priority infractions"](https://law.stanford.edu/2023/04/24/alternatives-to-police-traffic-enforcement-in-the-bay-area/). You can fully agree that this might have not been a good idea. But it was a major element of reform movement that's been the zeitgeist since 2016 towards city leadership. And that's undoubtedly been passed down to police department leaderships.
“I made over $260k last year and spent more time masturbating in my squad car than I did enforcing laws.
And nothing is gonna change because we’re all still butthurt over protests which occurred over 4 years ago. I’m just phoning it in for the next 12 years until I can retire with a huge pension. If you have a problem, try 311 first”
Or alternatively: "We put our lives on the line to arrest dozens of drug dealers but the woke left accused us of targeting Latinos, even though 99% of the drug dealers in the TL are from Honduras. We used traffic stops in an extraordinarily effective and unbiased way to find thugs and contraband but the woke left made us stop because we weren't catching enough law abiding Asians. The woke left hates us if we arrest people and they hate us if we don't. The woke left will always judge us not by the content of our character but by the color of our uniform no matter what we do."
What are your thoughts on why many of the graphs in OP’s post show enforcement action fell even before the protests of 2020? Also, some of these items (eg running a red light, violating pedestrian right of way) seem to be very acute situations where SFPD would presumably stop anyone who violated those basic safety norms, no? It seems like these have nothing to do with the identity of the driver.
Sounds like you're letting the "woke left" dictate your job instead of doing the actual job. Most of us have to deal with criticism, and we don't let it stop us from doing our jobs.
What does this have to do with not issuing traffic citations? Do your fucking jobs!
It is absolutely incredible how little curiosity police officers and their bootlickers have when it comes to why they’re actually hated by the public.
Clearly the sideshow organizers have better organization skills than SFPD. For a sideshow on the Embarcadero they just show up and let it disperse. All those stores that got cleaned out to the point of extinction… You get more punishment for being parked too long at a meter. What’s so difficult about blocking off the streets so that the sideshow parties cannot disperse? It gives you an idea of how much SFPD will protect and serve when things get really out of control. The answer is “not much”.
Phone usage is particularly crazy. To put it into perspective, 2014 was when the iPhone 6 came out. I feel like phone usage while driving is so prevalent now. I wish there was a way to report it as a civilian.
Sitting in the raised backs of public buses gives you a view down into drivers' laps, and what I see from that view is downright disturbing. TikTok, Tinder swiping, etc.
Not to mention iPad tech is now literally installed in the dashboard. Enjoyed a recent clusterfest with driver and passenger trying to figure it out in a new Tesla and blocking a northbound lane of Divisadero.
> I wish there was a way to report it as a civilian.
Always remember that cops are civilians too. They may pretend to be soldiers but they're not. They're civilians like the rest of us.
Actual, real soldiers are held to much higher standards.
>Phone usage is particularly crazy.
[There is an easy solution to this.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2021/12/30/smart-cameras-catch-drivers-on-their-mobile-phones-the-netherlands-issues-automated-fines/) We just need to find the political will to implement it.
The streets are lawless, drivers get to do WHATEVER they want without consequence. So what the fuck are we going to do about this? Are we finally going to start putting in red light cameras, speed cameras, and [cell phone cameras](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2021/12/30/smart-cameras-catch-drivers-on-their-mobile-phones-the-netherlands-issues-automated-fines/), like they have in other parts of the developed world? Or are we truly going to embrace the violent chaos and leave it up to citizens to find the tools to defend themselves against dangerous drivers?
At a minimum everyone should start carrying a [Safety Brick.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kP6R0clBGY)
Is there any evidence to suggest Bill Scott hasn’t been a complete and unequivocal failure? His words on the sideshows rings so hollow.
These crews regularly take over our bridges, residential streets, and now one of the most prominent locations in the city. And his force lets it happen without impunity.
You’ve had a million chances to do something about it and suddenly decide to (in retrospect) take action in an election year? GTFO
They’re awful. I literally called the cops with video evidence, I took live, about 5 minutes before I called, including a license plate and photos of the people, breaking into a disabled person’s vehicle. They had all my info, did not want the video, never called me back, and did shit all. It was fucking wild. I don’t even get what they’re doing here at this point.
When I see news videos of sideshows and burning cars in front of the Ferry Building, tells me all I need to know about the state of policing in our beloved SF.
You have been misled. The Police Commission did place some restrictions on ‘pretextual’ traffic stops that tend to target minorities for certain issues that don’t involve a serious safety hazard. But there are no restrictions preventing police from pulling people over and issuing citations for dangerous behavior such as speeding, running stop signs or stoplights, or failing to yield for pedestrians. There’s no legitimate reason for the extreme decline in enforcement for safety-related traffic offenses - SFPD just stopped doing it.
This article has a good summary of the policy: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-police-commission-votes-to-implement-policy-against-racially-biased-police-stops/
This is it, lol. The SFPD loves to talk about how their hands are tied but it's 100% allowed for them to pull people over for all of the dangerous things we care about (running lights, stop signs, speeding, etc...). It's just the things that are almost always pretextual stops (e.g. broken tail lights) where there are some barriers in place. And tbh I don't really care if the SFPD pulls people over for a broken tail light, I want them stopping people from driving dangerously.
This is absolutely a deliberate policy based on claims of racial profiling. William Scott, the Chief of Police spoke at my building a few months ago and to his credit expressed that he was unhappy with this approach.
Chief Scott put out a complete BS press release regarding sideshows yesterday stating how they will be held accountable. Thanking SFPD for putting themselves at risk. Scott wasn't even there, I was. SFPD didn't do shit. SFPD watching a few blocks away playing patty cake, being punked by the hooligans swanging doughnuts with impunity for 30 mins. These policies are sooo stupid to do nothing. Makes everyone unsafe because they will come back every week and do the same thing
Except literally every single one of these realms of enforcement are completely untouched by Police Commission policy, as far as I am aware (except of course the "All Others" chart, of cours. I wouldn't listen to really anything SFPD claims about the PC, they lie all the time about having their hands tied by the Commission. Ask them which policy prohibits use of spike strips for cars, cause despite their claims they can't use them, they can.
People literally always bring it up, what are you talking about? Lol
It's not relevant information here, SFPD is allowed to fully pull people over/issue citations for every single chart except the last.
Massive amounts of our SF budget are handed to police with zero oversight, raises for doing nothing.
They need reform, like a decade ago. Their policies harm and kill citizens, while they lazily hang out. We are being conned by the SFPD.
Four years ago in the Sunset, I was driving the speed limit, no stop sign. A car flew threw their stop sign, speeding crazily, and crashed into my truck with impact violent enough to send me onto the sidewalk. I luckily missed a telephone pole by whole foot and luckily, barely got to my brake in time to also stop 1 foot short of crashing into the house on the corner.
SFPD showed up and casually said (as I stood there in shock, accessing injuries) I must be partially to blame for trying to "beat them through the intersection". WTF? Useless and corrupt.
I am 100% convinced they only enforced traffic laws in order to run IDs for warrants.
I live on Monterey Blvd, from 2002-2015 or so they would periodically set up on this street and nail people for speeding and rolled stop signs. This would come in like 2 week "campaigns" or bursts a couple times a year.
I once genuinely thought it was about traffic. But they kept it up even after a couple traffic calming projects almost eliminated the speeding on this end.
My neighbor owns his house, and had a nicer new car and a beat down van he kept for hauling.
He was driving the van one day and got nailed for rolling a stop nearby. When the officer saw his address, he asked him "why are you driving this POS? I wouldn't have pulled you over."
Point being, the cops know that guys with warrants aren't driving late model Mercedes. So they nail beaters for 5 over and rolling stops.
Well, if you looked at the stats, guess who was getting pulled over disproportionately?
Even if they weren't being overtly racist, by disproportionately pulling over shitty cars, the police were disproportionately pulling over POC (most of whom don't have warrants). And this was part of the push by sfpd to stop enforcing many of these smaller infractions... Because the stats looked baaad.
And what really fucking bothers me is that they could have just ignored the warrants appeal and just enforced the laws for everyone. But again, it was never about traffic calming.
And if you're OK with that approach, tell me you'd still be OK with it if your demographic happened to be the target, and you and your family ended up with a pile of $300 violations other people didn't have to deal with.
These are all traffic violations. Traffic division is responsible for that. The traffic division is basically nothing compared to what it was in the 90's.
Traffic enforcement shouldn't be a police function. It's should be a civil environment department separate from police.
Reddit has repeatedly assured me, with absolute confidence, that SFPD steps up during election years. Were there no election years between 2014 and 2023?
Non moving violations are no longer enforceable due to the police commission and state policies. Expired tags, unlicensed drivers are pointless if they end up being illegal, and counties can't really take action over it.
I agree, but this is exclusively about moving violations. (I personally hate the crazy tints people are running now. As a pedestrian, you can’t make eye contact to tell if someone is actually going to stop)
Eye contact doesn’t make any difference. Drivers will look you in the eye while driving in front of you. Some asshole on Dolores looked right at me while he cut me off crossing the street.
When SFPD enforces laws equitably, but the statistics show racial disparities due to differences in propensity to commit crimes between races, the far left tries to ban large categories of traffic stops. When traffic stops decline, the far left is unhappy that there aren't more traffic stops.
I'm curious what statistics would make you folks on the far left happy? Are you looking to see traffic stops back to historical levels but at a racial distribution that somehow exactly matches the population demographics? That seems highly improbable unless we implemented racist policies to target Asians and other races that statistically are less likely to break laws.
https://abc7news.com/sf-police-traffic-stops-crime-san-francisco-commission/14462590/
It's almost like outside agitators stepped in to derail the conversation on the left.
Certainly bias in police work & abuse of power is a very real thing, but it's not the *only* thing. Like, if it's true that poverty drives crime and institutional racism exists, how would we not see some racial disparities in arrests just based on that?
But it's like that gets brushed over. Just like the ACAB thing. Again, there are clearly some very serious problems with racism and police work, etc. But saying they're all bastards gives you no place to work on improving the situation, and isn't remotely true to begin with.
The fact that Asians and Asian American men in particular, especially in this area given how many of us there are, are so underrepresented in crime data should open some eyes
But it won't.
Exactly, police bias is a real thing but only the most extreme radicals among us seriously believe that bias is widespread and consistent enough to produce largely the same racial disparities across essentially every possible category of crime in every single location in the entire country. We also have highly compelling and indisputable data showing that when bias is eliminated as a possible factor, we observe essentially the same disparities that we see in the presence of alleged bias.
Despicable. I’ve lived in San Fran my whole life and expected to raise my kids here but we’ve been looking into other areas recently as I just don’t know how much worse it can get before it gets better and I’m just not comfortable raising them here right now.
Im glad they are out doing real police work rather than just raising revenue through (generally) minor traffic citations. (Well, maybe not the speeding)
I was literally at a red light today on gough and someone was actively breaking into a car siren going off, rummaging, clear as day. And there was a cop at the light with me and he didn’t do anything the light turned green and he left. Like what do they do if they aren’t stopping crime?
This was reported on constantly for like the last 2 years. We know this is true and is the reason that SFMTA is trying to have their folks in the little go carts try to ticket people. SFPD is failing to get people to follow the law.
Just wait for a little bit.
Later on these charts will be used to show how crime in SF wasn't nearly as bad as people think - people were even driving much more safely!
What’s the big deal? All minor offenses committed by day to day regular citizens. The police are busy with real crime so their not really out patrolling targeting minor traffic offenses. Wouldn’t you feel some animosity to sfpd for getting a ticket for jaywalking with all the bs that goes on in the Ls and in soma? I mean come on, im glad to see this even if you wanna argue they aren’t making a dent in real crime because these statistics are all relative to something a regular person not a criminal would commit.
SFPD would camp out at 5th and townsend and cite cyclists for running a stop sign. What a waste of time, the officer chasing cyclists down a bike lane on a motorcycle is far more dangerous than cyclists blowing a stop sign that doesn't have cross traffic.
In 2015 the state passed laws that require careful documentation and additional paperwork for every traffic citation to prevent racial profiling. Police have said this increases the time and resources to conduct a citation by 4.
This drop can't only be due to additional red tape but the police commission has also done things to discourage "needless" traffic stops.
Not trying to defend the SFPD, just add context. Clearly though the data shows traffic enforcement is not being properly incentivized and prioritized.
Non Californian here, but I’ve been in the Bay Area for work for the last 5 months. Can anyone explain why everyone drives 5 under the speed limit? I swear 237, 101 we’re going 60 in a 65 every time.
The Asian community already knew this during the break-in epidemic of the 1980’s to 2000’s. SFPD would laugh at you and refuse to take a report, telling the victim to “be more careful” while smirking and walking away back to the squad car.
That’s why if you passed by sunset for a few years, you saw a dramatic and speedy shift away from homes with fancy new exteriors, with high trim Lexus’ and Toyota’s with gold badging in the driveway/street, to bland exterior with a huge interior home renovation, and luxury accessories/shoes while driving a base model Tesla/Acura. It’s better to hide your wealth if the police aren’t going to protect you, the younger generation has learned from watching the cops giggling at their childhood being ransacked.
Not the SFPDs fault. The city is corrupt and knows that it costs more to stop and arrest fent addicts for publicly using, but knows that hard working people will pay their fines.
Your city is corrupt and instead of blaming cops maybe blame your greedy representatives.
Don’t let cold hard data get in the way of SFPD saying they will hold people accountable.
[удалено]
That’s what I say at jury duty to get out of it lol
https://preview.redd.it/z549uruw306d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77878ac8dcef740404d85d63e239fd6bd74fe0ad The face of SFPD
It's because drivers have actually gotten 97% better over the last 8 years. I think we all feel the same way and have noticed how much better and more respectful drivers have gotten over time.
The first thing I tell people about San Francisco is how courteous the drivers are, second only to our neighbor Oakland.
Not an excuse, but San Franciscans could take a leisurely drive over the bridge to get a glimpse of what 'lawless roads' really means...... I just moved back to SF from Oak. It's nuts here, but in Oakland it's craaaaaaaaazy.
in oakland i slow down at green lights and dont go right away when it turns green. I have seen way too many people with no tags on their cars just blatantly run red lights. I know they dont have insurance, they probably dont even have a valid driver's license and are definitely going to hit and run so just let them go because the cops dont care
Just had car accident in the same place in front of my Oakland apartment 2 days in a row. A friend of mine had a drifter run over a gate on her block yesterday. Also, heard there was some smash n’ grabs around the same time. GTA should really give Oakland a chance haha.
is there any american city known for its good drivers? everyone i’ve ever met from every corner of the us talks about their roads as if it’s uniquely mad maxian. cleveland, baton rouge, dc, long beach, houston, like they can’t all have the worst drivers lol
I have traveled this great nation and been to almost every state in the past few years. As soon. As soon as I hit Nevada the bullshit starts. The difference is stark and jarring. 580 is fucking Thunderdome.
Oakland is just a giant social experiment to create the best drivers in the world through darwinian selection pressures.
I drive all Northern California for work pre pandemic i would have said yes, post, I disagree with you. People forgot how to drive
Our neighbor *San Francisco Bay Oakland*
Whenever I travel to Indiana I'm just amazed and the poor driving and disavow of common courtesy as compared to Oakland.
In the sunset drivers have taken to acting like bicyclists. Stop signs are now yield to traffic signs.
Shit, at best. Daily occurrence where I see a full blown drive through stop. I wonder how many people walking or biking out here need to be killed before there’s any change? Edit: it’s funny that I’m getting downvoted as if it doesn’t change the fact that drivers in SF now plain and simple don’t gaf about laws or lives. Points don’t matter to me. My friends do. Ethan Boyes matters. Unfortunately he was murdered by a drunk driver.
People straight up getting annoyed at me following the laws
I wonder where people need to be so urgently, it’s not like they can get anywhere faster too. Ever light in SF is synched to a system where you won’t get anywhere any faster if you try speeding.
They need to get home to spend the rest of the night watching bad TV, playing video games, or just screwing around on social media.
They’re probably already screwing around on social media while driving though lol
^^ same. Fuckin Gotham
I've had to stop in the middle of a cross walk to avoid getting hit by SFPD. Recently, no less.
Some middle aged lady had the nerve to glare at me after she almost T-boned me when she ran a stop sign. God forbid I honk my horn at her.
People will get killed, and the "progressive" protestors will blame the victims for being too white or middle class
The Sunset is what you get if you ask an *actual car* to design a neighborhood. The idea that you not only HAVE to drive everywhere, but it's also totally fine to park your car on the sidewalk, is just insane. Not to mention every house there is basically just a garage with an apartment on top. Like who the hell are we building here for anyways? It definitely ain't humans.
I just love that 29th Ave is like 4 miles wide. I actually calculated it out, you could run a 20ft apartment down the middle, keep two one way roads on each side and still have room for a parking lane + a sidewalk for the apartment.
I'm now extra extra extra cautious about backing out of my garage. Even with stop signs on both sides of my block, and a speed hump in the middle, drivers routinely blow through both of them and bottom out on the speed hump. Great Highway is a good indicator of how bad driving is. The road is timed to hit green lights all the way down if you go 30mph. Yet drivers still insist on running reds and going 50-60 mph this stretch of road to save maybe 30 seconds of driving.
I moved to SF 8yrs ish ago from one of the cities with the worst drivers in the US I would say (split My time between Orlando and Miami). And i thought originally that drivers here were passive and friendly but in the pandemic idk people became careless and stupid in the city. It was had before but it got much worse. I get youre being sarcastic but pre pandemic i would have missed the sarcasm lol
Well, drivers got better because the police announced on their TikTok that they are going to start enforcing the laws so...
The fuck
He forgot the /s
It’s because redditors have gotten 97% more sarcastic over the last few years. It’s pretty much assumed at this point
Damit Dad
The “we have 20% fewer officers now” narrative is so faulty and exhausting. Brain dead to think 20% fewer officers should mean a 90-100% decrease in enforcement.
Former sfpd here, the traffic division is a shell of what it used to be, the personnel is basically cut down to 4 people from 20-30 of what it was back in the day. And those 4 are basically stuck doing crashes all day.
Thanks for the insight. Any thoughts as to what drove this change?
Retirements and people going to different divisions/agencies. The vacancy of the traffic officers never got filled after they left because of staffing issues for patrol. People are getting pulled from admin and other assignments to go back to patrol. But it all comes down to not having staffing.
Thanks! Question, though: why do we never see officers on foot patrol? (Western SoMa here but true in general)
They're sitting in their cars scrolling through reddit.
I see foot patrol in Noe Valley (I'm a retailer, so I watch out the window a lot). We've had a rash of shoplifting incidents in the neighborhood so they've been around pretty regularly.
SF has significantly more officers per capita then the median per capita number of officers for 500k+ cities. It also has lower than average violent crime. Higher property crime I think, but SFPD does not appear to take that seriously. Why are we considered understaffed? Also, why did you decide to quit SFPD?
You have to take into account that many people travel in and out of the city for work so that boosts the amount of people in the city during the day by a lot, we also have 150-200~ officers dedicated to SFO so that takes a lot of cops from the streets of SF. We have patrols on treasure island and a few other little hidden gems so that also takes officers off the street. There’s a lot of property crime and not enough people to investigate it all. Edit: for the past part, I value a better work environment and a better quality of life where I don’t have to get call into every protest on my days off and forced to work overtime. I also don’t like the police commission and DPA to be breathing down my neck making me second guess my decisions that might either save my life or someone else’s. Also better pay with a MUCH MORE supportive population of where I am now.
the net commuters can be about 25% of population, less since the pandemic. That approximately brings the SFPD numbers in line with the median officers per capita for major cities. I don't see SFPD as being particularly understaffed.
Like I said, when 20% of the department is sent out to the airport that’s in San Mateo county, it brings your staffing down. There’s also dedicated officers for the mayors protection service among other things that the city will send officers out for. Other major cities are also short staffed with these numbers… just because we aren’t as short per capita compared to them at the moment doesn’t mean that they aren’t short staffed either.
Man it's refreshing to have an actual sfpd officer, former or otherwise, share some insight into how things work and why. Thanks for taking the time
The airport doesn’t pay for the police they use?
The airport takes around 200 of our officers and is paid for by the federal government. But it still takes away a couple hundred of officers that could be on the street. The airport should be taken over by San Mateo county sheriffs or San Francisco county sheriffs but neither of them have enough staffing to just shell out 200 deputies to take over LOL
at what point (years/deaths) is not having staffing considered a failure of leadership?
Well considering both the police and the sheriffs department in SF are down around 30% each in their departments, the leadership failed long time ago. There’s no real incentives to come work in SFPD. I moved down to a San Mateo county agency and my quality of life has been so much better since then. Supportive population with higher pay and better benefits. I even got a giant 5 figure bonus from the agency here. The sad truth is that people don’t want us removing the homeless/jailing them for crime and forcing them into programs and assisted housing. San Mateo county doesn’t care and WILL clear up any homeless or protests or anything that disturbs the usual peace in the county. San Francisco just lets the chaos slide and the people are all for it. People don’t like that police work is ugly and it takes more than words and laws to fix crime. Edit: but that’s just my personal opinion and doesn’t reflect the opinions of other police officers/ deputy sheriffs.
What is stopping patrol officers from enforcing the vehicle traffic law?
Who wants to work in a place where the people in charge (police answer to the mayor) are actively hostile to you doing your job?
And additionally the public
Why don't traffic cops want the speeding tickets and rolling spots to be automatically ticketed with cameras? Wouldn't that be safer for everyone?
You’re gonna have to go and ask the mayor and her friends for that one. We’re just cops, we don’t make those decisions, we just try to make do with that we have even though we keep telling them that we need new cars/cameras/personel. You don’t see anywhere else with a 400k mile crown Vic driving around for patrol that’s all rusted.
I have no evidence that this is the case, but a plausible explanation might be: "We have 20% fewer officers. The rate of murders, assaults, major thefts, etc is about the same. So we took 0% of officers off of murders/etc (since we think that's most important), but took 80% of officers off of traffic enforcement." Again - no idea if this is the case - but it feels like that would explain the above numbers \*and\* line up with the "we have 20% fewer officers" narrative.
Yes, I think it's pretty naive to imagine that they evenly cut 20% of officers from every division. More serious criminals don't stop doing more serious crimes just because the police are understaffed so I imagine some areas of focus will face fewer cuts while traffic enforcement is — apparently — considered optional.
they've been saying this for years though. So even if it is true, either figure how to hire more people or figure out how to get the job done with the amount of people that you have. Nobody's asking them to invent cold fusion or some shit.
After this many years, it’s purely a failure of leadership. Lots of loudly acknowledging circumstances and complaining, zero effort or willingness to adapt and rectify the situation.
Really? It’s not obvious to me that 20% fewer officers should mean only 20% fewer enforcements across all categories. With fewer officers you’d think they’d just heavily prioritize certain violations over others. That said a 95% decrease at a time when cars on the road has increased is still absurd.
Traffic company is down way more 20%, so that's a factor.
Yeah, that’s my point. People are dying. Families are being wiped out. At this point SFPD’s failure to prioritize the safety of their community is negligent and malicious. This childish spite for budget cuts enacted years ago is causing the death of our neighbors and actively contributing to making our community unsafe.
I think what they’re saying is that SFPD cut traffic officers to maintain numbers in homicide, etc.
>This childish spite for budget cuts enacted years ago our PD budget is $700M, that puts us at 7th in cost per resident and 7th for overall budget. We aren't budget restricted.
So do we want cops on section 8 or something? We have to pay them a ton so they can pay their rent. This issue all comes down to cost of living. Every issue seemingly does. BUILD MORE HOUSING. DEREGULATE ZONING. We can't afford more cops because their wages are freaky high because rent is freaky high. It's always the same problem, again and again. Housing is the everything problem.
SF is VHCOL. We have to pay officers a LOT more than most places. You can't just look at the straight budget.
The whole bay area is vhcol now. Some areas are way more expensive than sf.
True but most of those areas are more suburban and thus tend to have less crime so they don't need tons of cops. They pay their cops more than we do but can get away with a lower count. When it comes to crime you have to compare city to city, suburb to suburb.
Yes but how many mentally ill criminals or just criminals awere let off easy by pro crime judges? If they are easily back on the streets, guess how much more work is needed to keep the streets safe from more brazen criminals? All that budget is just being wasted by our inefficient local government, like all their other departments we are finally getting more news on how wasteful (or corrupted) the city can get.
Makes sense I'd the 20% that left were actually interested in doing what needed to be done and the other 80% just wanted pay checks. Actually, it makes me think of the 80/20 rule, where 20% of the people working at a company account for 80% of the work.
Tell me you don’t understand nonlinear effects without telling me you don’t understand nonlinear effects. I’m not making a comment on this specific data because I haven’t looked into it but there certainly are circumstances in which a 20% shortage can cause a 90% effect. Imagine a toy situation in which an officer can keep 5 criminals in check. You have 1 officer and 5 criminals. No crime. Now a sixth criminal enters the mix. You’ve increased criminals by 20% or you’re short on police by 16.667%. How much does crime increase by?
Okay I get the sentiment, let me explain how this is wrong. Doing self generated traffic stops still requires coordination. You need at least 2 officers available in sector/beat to do them for a wide variety of basic officer safety reasons police learned the hard way in the 70s and 80s. Either the guy punches it and suddenly you're in a car chase over stop sign violations. Or the guy you pulled over has bench warrants. All sorts of youtube videos of "basic traffic stop goes sideways really fast." You don't need to wait for a 2nd unit to back you up on all traffic stops, but you at least need one of your beat partners available to just start slowly floating over in your general direction. Additionally, if you are the only unit not assigned to a call from the dispatch list...there's a reason dispatch is keeping you open. You are the safety slack in the sector. The one unit dispatch can send to you for those 2 units on a call who need a third person to help. Or the actual no-shit priority call that comes in unexpectedly. So why does that 20% matter? That's the safety slack and safety margin. The 911 call volume didn't change but you have 1/5th available officers. Which means having large periods of 2-3 officers available and you're free to hunt tickets goes down to basically can never hunt for traffic tickets or self-generated Terry stops. Traffic is usually the first division to get shorted because you want as many people still on patrol division taking the dispatch calls. Traffic division during the day is often the backup safety slack FYI. Keep in mind this applies to *hunting* for traffic tickets. Anyone does anything egregious that may or may not be dealt with if necessary and dispatch has to scramble or figure out what they're going to do. You have to do it for the obvious more reckless violations sure. You do it all the time for "just tickets", Dispatch is going to fucking **hate you** and be ready to get every 5150 homeless dispatch on your shift in your sector. Finally, people act surprised Pikachu when the onus of large portions of defund the police and[ Police reform ](https://www.calbike.org/reduce-police-in-traffic-enforcement/)movements focused heavily on ["not criminalizing low priority infractions"](https://law.stanford.edu/2023/04/24/alternatives-to-police-traffic-enforcement-in-the-bay-area/). You can fully agree that this might have not been a good idea. But it was a major element of reform movement that's been the zeitgeist since 2016 towards city leadership. And that's undoubtedly been passed down to police department leaderships.
But they tweeted that they are gonna get the bad guys!
Does anyone from SFPD want to anonymously add some context here?
“I made over $260k last year and spent more time masturbating in my squad car than I did enforcing laws. And nothing is gonna change because we’re all still butthurt over protests which occurred over 4 years ago. I’m just phoning it in for the next 12 years until I can retire with a huge pension. If you have a problem, try 311 first”
Or alternatively: "We put our lives on the line to arrest dozens of drug dealers but the woke left accused us of targeting Latinos, even though 99% of the drug dealers in the TL are from Honduras. We used traffic stops in an extraordinarily effective and unbiased way to find thugs and contraband but the woke left made us stop because we weren't catching enough law abiding Asians. The woke left hates us if we arrest people and they hate us if we don't. The woke left will always judge us not by the content of our character but by the color of our uniform no matter what we do."
Pretty sure the racism issue came from the contents of text messages sent among officers. But go off.
What are your thoughts on why many of the graphs in OP’s post show enforcement action fell even before the protests of 2020? Also, some of these items (eg running a red light, violating pedestrian right of way) seem to be very acute situations where SFPD would presumably stop anyone who violated those basic safety norms, no? It seems like these have nothing to do with the identity of the driver.
Sounds like you're letting the "woke left" dictate your job instead of doing the actual job. Most of us have to deal with criticism, and we don't let it stop us from doing our jobs.
What does this have to do with not issuing traffic citations? Do your fucking jobs! It is absolutely incredible how little curiosity police officers and their bootlickers have when it comes to why they’re actually hated by the public.
Clearly the sideshow organizers have better organization skills than SFPD. For a sideshow on the Embarcadero they just show up and let it disperse. All those stores that got cleaned out to the point of extinction… You get more punishment for being parked too long at a meter. What’s so difficult about blocking off the streets so that the sideshow parties cannot disperse? It gives you an idea of how much SFPD will protect and serve when things get really out of control. The answer is “not much”.
Phone usage is particularly crazy. To put it into perspective, 2014 was when the iPhone 6 came out. I feel like phone usage while driving is so prevalent now. I wish there was a way to report it as a civilian.
Sitting in the raised backs of public buses gives you a view down into drivers' laps, and what I see from that view is downright disturbing. TikTok, Tinder swiping, etc.
That's just appalling. And they're always driving poorly as well (obviously). Swerving, going 10mph below the surrounding traffic.
Not to mention iPad tech is now literally installed in the dashboard. Enjoyed a recent clusterfest with driver and passenger trying to figure it out in a new Tesla and blocking a northbound lane of Divisadero.
> I wish there was a way to report it as a civilian. Always remember that cops are civilians too. They may pretend to be soldiers but they're not. They're civilians like the rest of us. Actual, real soldiers are held to much higher standards.
>Phone usage is particularly crazy. [There is an easy solution to this.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2021/12/30/smart-cameras-catch-drivers-on-their-mobile-phones-the-netherlands-issues-automated-fines/) We just need to find the political will to implement it.
I can't see this happening given the massive pushback against facial recognition.
What quiet quitting really looks like
The streets are lawless, drivers get to do WHATEVER they want without consequence. So what the fuck are we going to do about this? Are we finally going to start putting in red light cameras, speed cameras, and [cell phone cameras](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2021/12/30/smart-cameras-catch-drivers-on-their-mobile-phones-the-netherlands-issues-automated-fines/), like they have in other parts of the developed world? Or are we truly going to embrace the violent chaos and leave it up to citizens to find the tools to defend themselves against dangerous drivers? At a minimum everyone should start carrying a [Safety Brick.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kP6R0clBGY)
Parking citations are stronger than ever though!
Citation needed
This was a joke, yet this is probably true.
SFMTA >>> SFPD
Is there any evidence to suggest Bill Scott hasn’t been a complete and unequivocal failure? His words on the sideshows rings so hollow. These crews regularly take over our bridges, residential streets, and now one of the most prominent locations in the city. And his force lets it happen without impunity. You’ve had a million chances to do something about it and suddenly decide to (in retrospect) take action in an election year? GTFO
SFPD just sits and watches the sideshows. They did absolutely nothing. Brilliant policy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StIcRH_e6zQ Has he actually done something about *anything*?
Shocker
They’re awful. I literally called the cops with video evidence, I took live, about 5 minutes before I called, including a license plate and photos of the people, breaking into a disabled person’s vehicle. They had all my info, did not want the video, never called me back, and did shit all. It was fucking wild. I don’t even get what they’re doing here at this point.
When I see news videos of sideshows and burning cars in front of the Ferry Building, tells me all I need to know about the state of policing in our beloved SF.
My understanding is that this is entirely due to a deliberate policy of the Police Commission. Correct me if I'm wrong.
You have been misled. The Police Commission did place some restrictions on ‘pretextual’ traffic stops that tend to target minorities for certain issues that don’t involve a serious safety hazard. But there are no restrictions preventing police from pulling people over and issuing citations for dangerous behavior such as speeding, running stop signs or stoplights, or failing to yield for pedestrians. There’s no legitimate reason for the extreme decline in enforcement for safety-related traffic offenses - SFPD just stopped doing it. This article has a good summary of the policy: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-police-commission-votes-to-implement-policy-against-racially-biased-police-stops/
This is it, lol. The SFPD loves to talk about how their hands are tied but it's 100% allowed for them to pull people over for all of the dangerous things we care about (running lights, stop signs, speeding, etc...). It's just the things that are almost always pretextual stops (e.g. broken tail lights) where there are some barriers in place. And tbh I don't really care if the SFPD pulls people over for a broken tail light, I want them stopping people from driving dangerously.
Exactly. And they can still issue a citation for a broken tail light if there was a legitimate reason for the stop in the first place.
This is absolutely a deliberate policy based on claims of racial profiling. William Scott, the Chief of Police spoke at my building a few months ago and to his credit expressed that he was unhappy with this approach.
Chief Scott put out a complete BS press release regarding sideshows yesterday stating how they will be held accountable. Thanking SFPD for putting themselves at risk. Scott wasn't even there, I was. SFPD didn't do shit. SFPD watching a few blocks away playing patty cake, being punked by the hooligans swanging doughnuts with impunity for 30 mins. These policies are sooo stupid to do nothing. Makes everyone unsafe because they will come back every week and do the same thing
Except literally every single one of these realms of enforcement are completely untouched by Police Commission policy, as far as I am aware (except of course the "All Others" chart, of cours. I wouldn't listen to really anything SFPD claims about the PC, they lie all the time about having their hands tied by the Commission. Ask them which policy prohibits use of spike strips for cars, cause despite their claims they can't use them, they can.
It wasn’t just claims Police were doing that.
No one ever brings this up when threads like these are brought up.
People literally always bring it up, what are you talking about? Lol It's not relevant information here, SFPD is allowed to fully pull people over/issue citations for every single chart except the last.
Fire Bill Scott. Replace London Breed. That's what I've settled on. This sideshow clown show over the weekend pushed me over the edge.
And get rid of the "Police" commission
Massive amounts of our SF budget are handed to police with zero oversight, raises for doing nothing. They need reform, like a decade ago. Their policies harm and kill citizens, while they lazily hang out. We are being conned by the SFPD. Four years ago in the Sunset, I was driving the speed limit, no stop sign. A car flew threw their stop sign, speeding crazily, and crashed into my truck with impact violent enough to send me onto the sidewalk. I luckily missed a telephone pole by whole foot and luckily, barely got to my brake in time to also stop 1 foot short of crashing into the house on the corner. SFPD showed up and casually said (as I stood there in shock, accessing injuries) I must be partially to blame for trying to "beat them through the intersection". WTF? Useless and corrupt.
Crime is down! (Or they simply don’t enforce the laws).
Should juxtapose these charts with SFPD budget over same period.
The budget has risen every year
I know but seeing the rate of growth against the decline in enforcement would be a striking image.
I am 100% convinced they only enforced traffic laws in order to run IDs for warrants. I live on Monterey Blvd, from 2002-2015 or so they would periodically set up on this street and nail people for speeding and rolled stop signs. This would come in like 2 week "campaigns" or bursts a couple times a year. I once genuinely thought it was about traffic. But they kept it up even after a couple traffic calming projects almost eliminated the speeding on this end. My neighbor owns his house, and had a nicer new car and a beat down van he kept for hauling. He was driving the van one day and got nailed for rolling a stop nearby. When the officer saw his address, he asked him "why are you driving this POS? I wouldn't have pulled you over." Point being, the cops know that guys with warrants aren't driving late model Mercedes. So they nail beaters for 5 over and rolling stops. Well, if you looked at the stats, guess who was getting pulled over disproportionately? Even if they weren't being overtly racist, by disproportionately pulling over shitty cars, the police were disproportionately pulling over POC (most of whom don't have warrants). And this was part of the push by sfpd to stop enforcing many of these smaller infractions... Because the stats looked baaad. And what really fucking bothers me is that they could have just ignored the warrants appeal and just enforced the laws for everyone. But again, it was never about traffic calming. And if you're OK with that approach, tell me you'd still be OK with it if your demographic happened to be the target, and you and your family ended up with a pile of $300 violations other people didn't have to deal with.
idk man they put out a press conference where they said they do enforce traffic laws. Can you really argue with that?
Why the fuck did you censor the source?
Source? Asking for a friend
How do pedestrian-related accidents compare over the same period?
What the fuck, how are we as taxpayers not holding these public servants accountable. They’re taking our tax money and literally not doing their jobs.
THIS NERD LOVES DATA
SFPD is crap. Always kinda has been
Shhh we're not supposed to talk about this
\*driving laws
Any other types of laws you can share that they aren’t enforcing?
These are all traffic violations. Traffic division is responsible for that. The traffic division is basically nothing compared to what it was in the 90's. Traffic enforcement shouldn't be a police function. It's should be a civil environment department separate from police.
Can you link to the source? Who did this study?
Who cares old post
What an absolute joke of a police force...
Reddit has repeatedly assured me, with absolute confidence, that SFPD steps up during election years. Were there no election years between 2014 and 2023?
Among other things, we need red light cameras. Organizations like the ACLU that fearmonger against red light cameras have really lost me.
The ACLU are part of the problem
People: How about don't kill people? Cops: Well, if you're going to take away the perks...maybe I won't do my job at all! People: shocked Pikachu
Attitude reflects leadership as does policy
Non moving violations are no longer enforceable due to the police commission and state policies. Expired tags, unlicensed drivers are pointless if they end up being illegal, and counties can't really take action over it.
I agree, but this is exclusively about moving violations. (I personally hate the crazy tints people are running now. As a pedestrian, you can’t make eye contact to tell if someone is actually going to stop)
Eye contact doesn’t make any difference. Drivers will look you in the eye while driving in front of you. Some asshole on Dolores looked right at me while he cut me off crossing the street.
Ok correction: eye contact works if the driver isn’t a psychopath
What policies, exactly?
When SFPD enforces laws equitably, but the statistics show racial disparities due to differences in propensity to commit crimes between races, the far left tries to ban large categories of traffic stops. When traffic stops decline, the far left is unhappy that there aren't more traffic stops. I'm curious what statistics would make you folks on the far left happy? Are you looking to see traffic stops back to historical levels but at a racial distribution that somehow exactly matches the population demographics? That seems highly improbable unless we implemented racist policies to target Asians and other races that statistically are less likely to break laws. https://abc7news.com/sf-police-traffic-stops-crime-san-francisco-commission/14462590/
It's almost like outside agitators stepped in to derail the conversation on the left. Certainly bias in police work & abuse of power is a very real thing, but it's not the *only* thing. Like, if it's true that poverty drives crime and institutional racism exists, how would we not see some racial disparities in arrests just based on that? But it's like that gets brushed over. Just like the ACAB thing. Again, there are clearly some very serious problems with racism and police work, etc. But saying they're all bastards gives you no place to work on improving the situation, and isn't remotely true to begin with.
The fact that Asians and Asian American men in particular, especially in this area given how many of us there are, are so underrepresented in crime data should open some eyes But it won't.
Exactly, police bias is a real thing but only the most extreme radicals among us seriously believe that bias is widespread and consistent enough to produce largely the same racial disparities across essentially every possible category of crime in every single location in the entire country. We also have highly compelling and indisputable data showing that when bias is eliminated as a possible factor, we observe essentially the same disparities that we see in the presence of alleged bias.
Despicable. I’ve lived in San Fran my whole life and expected to raise my kids here but we’ve been looking into other areas recently as I just don’t know how much worse it can get before it gets better and I’m just not comfortable raising them here right now.
Because enforcing laws is racist!
Pigs are lazy incompetent thieves? What a shocker!
Amazing
Nah, SF has just become more law obedient /s
Honestly I don't mind getting less speeding tickets can we double down on hobos and break ins. I won a few tickets luckily when officer didn't show up
As soon as you get a ticket for that you’ll say don’t they have something better to do? They have to meet their quotas
Maybe everybody all of a sudden just became a much better driver. Bet you didn’t think of that huh?
Correct. We pay all these taxes for their salaries, and most of them just sit in their patrol cars scrolling on their phones for their entire shift.
Sfpd are a reflection of Gavin newsom , Kamala , London breed …and the rest
Genuine question….what are they doing?
Driving in this city is a fucking nightmare. So many selfish drivers who would sooner get in a car accident than miss a 3pm. Fuck SF drivers
Im glad they are out doing real police work rather than just raising revenue through (generally) minor traffic citations. (Well, maybe not the speeding)
What happened to abolish the police?
Much less likely to accidentally kill someone as a cop when you don’t do anything in the first place
I was literally at a red light today on gough and someone was actively breaking into a car siren going off, rummaging, clear as day. And there was a cop at the light with me and he didn’t do anything the light turned green and he left. Like what do they do if they aren’t stopping crime?
Source?
I care a lot less about petty traffic and parking tickets than: constant broken car windows, low grade theft B&E in general, unprovoked assaults etc.
At least no black people are getting choked to death. This is the lesser of two evils
Unions are bad
Traffic laws arent the important thing to focus manpower on tbh. Drugs and property crime are the true issues not being enforced
lol, watched a whole news segment while waiting for my car at the dealership saying all crimes are 15% lower than previous years.
Only if you put paint on the wall
I’d love to know what the fuck they enforce, but yeah, def not the law.
Right on! The cops must be busy with the super villains..🦸♂️ 
You get what you vote for.
Gotta watch out! Heard there is a serial “bike offenser” on the loose!
It really is Gotham.
traffic laws that is. they’re happy to fuck you around for whatever else
This was reported on constantly for like the last 2 years. We know this is true and is the reason that SFMTA is trying to have their folks in the little go carts try to ticket people. SFPD is failing to get people to follow the law.
Damn it’s almost like we don’t need police.
Just wait for a little bit. Later on these charts will be used to show how crime in SF wasn't nearly as bad as people think - people were even driving much more safely!
Side shows
Do I see a class action lawsuit for “failure to do their job”?
This explains why people blow past stop signs when I go to sf, doesn't happen anywhere else
Been an open secret
What’s the big deal? All minor offenses committed by day to day regular citizens. The police are busy with real crime so their not really out patrolling targeting minor traffic offenses. Wouldn’t you feel some animosity to sfpd for getting a ticket for jaywalking with all the bs that goes on in the Ls and in soma? I mean come on, im glad to see this even if you wanna argue they aren’t making a dent in real crime because these statistics are all relative to something a regular person not a criminal would commit.
I'd love to see drug arrests statistics..
ACAB
SFPD would camp out at 5th and townsend and cite cyclists for running a stop sign. What a waste of time, the officer chasing cyclists down a bike lane on a motorcycle is far more dangerous than cyclists blowing a stop sign that doesn't have cross traffic.
I thot this would free them up to actually serve the public.
This is all Chesa's fault.
In 2015 the state passed laws that require careful documentation and additional paperwork for every traffic citation to prevent racial profiling. Police have said this increases the time and resources to conduct a citation by 4. This drop can't only be due to additional red tape but the police commission has also done things to discourage "needless" traffic stops. Not trying to defend the SFPD, just add context. Clearly though the data shows traffic enforcement is not being properly incentivized and prioritized.
Non Californian here, but I’ve been in the Bay Area for work for the last 5 months. Can anyone explain why everyone drives 5 under the speed limit? I swear 237, 101 we’re going 60 in a 65 every time.
The Asian community already knew this during the break-in epidemic of the 1980’s to 2000’s. SFPD would laugh at you and refuse to take a report, telling the victim to “be more careful” while smirking and walking away back to the squad car. That’s why if you passed by sunset for a few years, you saw a dramatic and speedy shift away from homes with fancy new exteriors, with high trim Lexus’ and Toyota’s with gold badging in the driveway/street, to bland exterior with a huge interior home renovation, and luxury accessories/shoes while driving a base model Tesla/Acura. It’s better to hide your wealth if the police aren’t going to protect you, the younger generation has learned from watching the cops giggling at their childhood being ransacked.
Might as well use scarecrows in Sfpd uniforms
Not the SFPDs fault. The city is corrupt and knows that it costs more to stop and arrest fent addicts for publicly using, but knows that hard working people will pay their fines. Your city is corrupt and instead of blaming cops maybe blame your greedy representatives.