4 ms·

Was in SF a week ago and my Uber driver took an illegal u-turn. He noticed me being quizzical and said that police don’t enforce anything anymore. He said a few

Was in SF a week ago and my Uber driver took an illegal u-turn. He noticed me being quizzical and said that police don’t enforce anything anymore. He said a few years ago they had a big push to enforce traffic laws to the letter and everyone got a lot of tickets but it’s now totally different. Kind of weird to have big swings on enforcement of things like that. It’s like there is a broken control algorithm somewhere.

woodruffw 4y ago
> It’s like there is a broken control algorithm somewhere. If SF is like NYC in this regard, it's because the police there have been on an unofficial and illegal work strike for years (long predating COVID). Municipalities have lost (or willfully ceded) their ability to oversee their police departments and, lacking any real consequences, the police are more than happy to sit on their thumbs.
Teknoman117 4y ago
Living in SF, I feel that some of the lack of enforcement has been that a bunch of our traffic flows have been completely broken. Feels that the powers that be are more happy to just leave things as they are with lax enforcement than fixing the routing. Some road signs have been changed (which turns are illegal, etc.) without considering how go some direction legally. Sunset neighborhood around 19th is mind numbing. Exceptionally few permitted left turns, random surface streets you'd otherwise use closed off except for residents of the street, etc. Not to mention that pulling over a car on an SF street will most likely start a traffic jam..
- scoofy 4y ago
  San Francisco has been operating on a fairly ineffective honor system for a good long time at this point. We do okay, but it's certainly sub-optimal.
- throwoutway 4y ago
  > Not to mention that pulling over a car on an SF street will most likely start a traffic jam.. People should not just stop in the road. I've heard officers use the megaphone (or walk up to the driver) to tell the person to pull into a parking lot. Otherwise, officers can just follow the driver until they're in a position that they can pull over somewhere and park safely. It creates traffic jams and is dangerous for both driver and officer
- Fatnino 4y ago
  Left turns off 19th should be banned throughout. If you want to cross that flow of traffic you need to pull out of it to the right, into any working street and then come back at it perpendicular and wait for a traffic light to create a gap for you. Camping out in the left lane clogging up half the capacity of the street while you wait for a gap in the oncoming direction is psychopathic behavior.

woodruffw 4y ago

> It’s like there is a broken control algorithm somewhere. If SF is like NYC in this regard, it's because the police there have been on an unofficial and illegal work strike for years (long predating COVID). Municipalities have lost (or willfully ceded) their ability to oversee their police departments and, lacking any real consequences, the police are more than happy to sit on their thumbs.

Teknoman117 4y ago

Living in SF, I feel that some of the lack of enforcement has been that a bunch of our traffic flows have been completely broken. Feels that the powers that be are more happy to just leave things as they are with lax enforcement than fixing the routing. Some road signs have been changed (which turns are illegal, etc.) without considering how go some direction legally. Sunset neighborhood around 19th is mind numbing. Exceptionally few permitted left turns, random surface streets you'd otherwise use closed off except for residents of the street, etc. Not to mention that pulling over a car on an SF street will most likely start a traffic jam..

scoofy 4y ago
San Francisco has been operating on a fairly ineffective honor system for a good long time at this point. We do okay, but it's certainly sub-optimal.
throwoutway 4y ago
> Not to mention that pulling over a car on an SF street will most likely start a traffic jam.. People should not just stop in the road. I've heard officers use the megaphone (or walk up to the driver) to tell the person to pull into a parking lot. Otherwise, officers can just follow the driver until they're in a position that they can pull over somewhere and park safely. It creates traffic jams and is dangerous for both driver and officer
Fatnino 4y ago
Left turns off 19th should be banned throughout. If you want to cross that flow of traffic you need to pull out of it to the right, into any working street and then come back at it perpendicular and wait for a traffic light to create a gap for you. Camping out in the left lane clogging up half the capacity of the street while you wait for a gap in the oncoming direction is psychopathic behavior.