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Really makes you wonder what they're actually doing. The claim that they're busy doing stuff like directing traffic for parades makes some amount of sense, but

Really makes you wonder what they're actually doing. The claim that they're busy doing stuff like directing traffic for parades makes some amount of sense, but can that really account for the workload of 45 traffic cops? Averaged out this would mean each cop maybe writes one citation every five days. Are there that many parades in San Francisco? If they're "understaffed" how many traffic cops do we need? How many citations will they write at that number? Even the old citation number cited in the article sounds incredibly low given how many traffic cops there are.

mjevans 4y ago
If they have 45 cops helping with NON-ticket based traffic safety I'm happy with that. The citations really should be reserved for when harm has been proven to have taken place, not just speed or anything else similarly minor.
- ryantgtg 4y ago
  So only give citations after something bad has happened? What are some examples of non-ticket based traffic safety, and how will they help reduce dangerous behavior?
  - mjevans 4y ago
    Station a police officer to direct traffic. To lead a procession. To hang out in a school zone. As a strong deterrence only. No intent to hand out tickets for minor infractions rather than literal crimes. Maybe also look for anyone on today's BOLO lists. Or just, instead of traffic specific police, put them back on beat patrols where they walk around and interact with the community in positive, peace and order, encouraging ways.
    - ryantgtg 4y ago
      Good ideas. Though I’d argue that some CVC violations can only be addressed through tickets. Window tint violations, for example, produce a dangerous situation the entire time that vehicle is in operation. No amount of traffic direction and whatnot can fix that - only a ticket to remove the illegal tint.
      - ryantgtg 4y ago
        Furthermore, I’d also argue that “fear of a ticket” is a very important deterrent to dangerous behavior. At present, the fear of a ticket is largely unfounded because cops do not seem to enforce traffic violations aside from using them as pretexts to stop and frisk (my experience is in LA). Managing traffic at distinct locations - especially if it’s known that violations aren’t enforced elsewhere - will have minimal impacts on overall driving habits. It’s the specter of omnipresent monitoring that will change behavior (to say nothing, of course, about actual engineering solutions). But that specter has to be grounded in reality, which right now it isn’t. The cops have given up, and people are starting to catch on.
rdtwo 4y ago
They probably Do road related routing for broken lights and construction areas
- smelendez 4y ago
  Yeah, it sounds like patrolling for violations isn’t really the core of their job, so they probably only issue a ticket when someone does something egregious in front of them. It makes some sense: if a cop is at a corner directing traffic, people aren’t going to flagrantly break the law, and the cop probably can’t really leave their post to deal with whatever does occur.
cheriot 4y ago
> But just 35% of the paltry number of citations issued in San Francisco since 2018 were for those five violations [most likely to result in crashes], while the majority were for behaviors unlikely to injure anyone else — like expired tags, suspended licenses, tinted windows and broken tail lights, the analysis found. Even the time spent on traffic enforcement is not spent wisely. Is SFPD this inept? Are there perverse incentives? I don't get it.

mjevans 4y ago

If they have 45 cops helping with NON-ticket based traffic safety I'm happy with that. The citations really should be reserved for when harm has been proven to have taken place, not just speed or anything else similarly minor.

ryantgtg 4y ago
So only give citations after something bad has happened? What are some examples of non-ticket based traffic safety, and how will they help reduce dangerous behavior?
- mjevans 4y ago
  Station a police officer to direct traffic. To lead a procession. To hang out in a school zone. As a strong deterrence only. No intent to hand out tickets for minor infractions rather than literal crimes. Maybe also look for anyone on today's BOLO lists. Or just, instead of traffic specific police, put them back on beat patrols where they walk around and interact with the community in positive, peace and order, encouraging ways.
  - ryantgtg 4y ago
    Good ideas. Though I’d argue that some CVC violations can only be addressed through tickets. Window tint violations, for example, produce a dangerous situation the entire time that vehicle is in operation. No amount of traffic direction and whatnot can fix that - only a ticket to remove the illegal tint.
    - ryantgtg 4y ago
      Furthermore, I’d also argue that “fear of a ticket” is a very important deterrent to dangerous behavior. At present, the fear of a ticket is largely unfounded because cops do not seem to enforce traffic violations aside from using them as pretexts to stop and frisk (my experience is in LA). Managing traffic at distinct locations - especially if it’s known that violations aren’t enforced elsewhere - will have minimal impacts on overall driving habits. It’s the specter of omnipresent monitoring that will change behavior (to say nothing, of course, about actual engineering solutions). But that specter has to be grounded in reality, which right now it isn’t. The cops have given up, and people are starting to catch on.

rdtwo 4y ago

They probably Do road related routing for broken lights and construction areas

smelendez 4y ago
Yeah, it sounds like patrolling for violations isn’t really the core of their job, so they probably only issue a ticket when someone does something egregious in front of them. It makes some sense: if a cop is at a corner directing traffic, people aren’t going to flagrantly break the law, and the cop probably can’t really leave their post to deal with whatever does occur.

cheriot 4y ago

> But just 35% of the paltry number of citations issued in San Francisco since 2018 were for those five violations [most likely to result in crashes], while the majority were for behaviors unlikely to injure anyone else — like expired tags, suspended licenses, tinted windows and broken tail lights, the analysis found. Even the time spent on traffic enforcement is not spent wisely. Is SFPD this inept? Are there perverse incentives? I don't get it.