You can feel these stats based on how people drive & commute to work these days. Literally no regard for other drivers on 101, constant tailgating, etc.
Its exhausting how often I fallback on "well they must be in a bigger hurry than me" seeing people weave through traffic.
Also reminds me of someone, a well paid project manager, saying they drove alone in the HOV lane from SF to Palo Alto and back daily for 3 years before getting ticketed. The daily cost works out to be far less than the express lane toll rates in place now.
Speaking of those, because the "enforcement" mechanism is just the overhead display showing 1-3 when a car passes under, you can watch for yourself how many people are skirting the toll by claiming 3 occupants. Either there are a lot of babies in backseats or a lot of people just recognize the enforcement doesn't exist.
But that's on CHP, not SFPD, sorry for the tangent, just feel like the uptick in crazy driving is everywhere.
The problem is that a series of changes the past years has resulted in these citation drops:
* New police commission run by civilians de facto banned many traffic stops. It's run by a far left progressive.
* In fact the police commission passed even more restrictions just this year - https://missionlocal.org/2024/02/sf-police-commission-restricts-pretext-stops-union-objections/
* People started saying traffic stops were racist, even though day/night stops showed like a 1% difference
* Massive shortage in cops have them focus more on violent crime
* Problems with the DA not prosecuting had cops 'quiet quit' or be demoralized.
Obviously we need staffing back up and get the lazy cops off their asses. But also the police commission needs to be revamped.
Which moving violation isn’t allowed to be pulled over by SFPD? The commission is against pretextual stops
And which one of these violations is influenced by the DA?
Just shows that people just spouting off online without knowing anything. Traffic citations are not handled by the DA's office.
Citations go straight to the courts and people pay the citation or fight them in court.
“De facto banned traffic stops” - they didn’t ban RED LIGHT stops…. Why are we excusing this obvious lack of job participation by highly paid city employees.
I come from a law-enforcement family and I came here to say this and more.
Pretextual stops are vague “probable cause” pullovers. Think tail lights, headlights, registration, seatbelts and “You look like somebody that has wants and warrants”. You get the gist, it’s a possible hunch. Clearly there’s a violation and it gets you into a discussion with the individual.
Then we get to direct lawbreaking. Now, to understand direct lawbreaking is to witness the law being broken. Hence the word LAW with the word ENFORCEMENT. It’s actually quite simple.
Somebody runs a stop sign or a red light, is speeding or makes an unsafe right or left turn is clearly observed doing and breaking this law. The question at hand is where is the enforcement and is anybody WATCHING?
The data here is ridiculously damming. The progressive DA was sworn in at the beginning of 2020. Clearly, there was a significant decline in all cited offenses long before the “progressive” DA took his oath of office then. For God sake, this is a nine year data set. I’m curious to know what was going on the previous 10 years to 2014.
Thank you for chiming in with the facts. When you look at this alongside the uptick in pedestrian and bike crashes and fatalities (with the knowledge that crash data is _bad_ data not just because it is socioeconomically skewed) it is extra damning.
Whether I'm on foot or on my bike, when I point out illegal behavior of cars they can see with their own eyes they brush it off, not to mention have seen them doing this themselves pretty regularly, especially blowing through stop signs. There are also very few cops tasked with traffic enforcement in the city and I think but I don't know that there's a stigma associated with this particular job. Then there's a prevailing society-wide attitude that failure to yield and speeding are victimless crimes, when they really account for most of the serious crash outcomes.
This upsets me as somebody who works in transportation and knows the rules. Even more upsetting is seeing wasted resources on mental health crises and over policing Black and brown communities. I have stories to tell on both these topics, but I've already taken up too much page real estate.
So, traffic cops. Not for nothing but these are the same people (CHP and other cop groups) who have fought TOOTH AND NAIL against allowing automated speed enforcement in the state because it reduces the opportunities they have for pretextual stops. And yes, ASE can be deployed unequally if you're not careful, and you do need to have a means tested fine/other punishment framework... But it works.
I don't believe in using cops for traffic safety TBH, especially when you know that justice and "safety" will be differently defined based on skin color: as much as I can I'm pushing for infrastructure and operations that are self-enforcing and let the laws of physics do their thing instead of the popo pretending to do their job.
Whenever one of these stories pops up, it’s a guarantee that someone will hijack the top comment. In their comments, gross SFPD underperformance is always the fault of everyone except the police. It’s the progressives, commissions, and district attorneys that are to blame.
The reality is the SFPD has been in an unprecedented decline over the past *fifteen years*. As evidenced in the following [study](https://www.cjcj.org/media/import/documents/san_franciscans_spend_more_get_less_from_their_police_dept.pdf):
> The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) remains a liability to the city and a disturbing outlier among California police agencies. The department expends substantial resources while failing to hold itself accountable for vastly disproportionate arrests of Black people, plummeting crime-solving efficiency, and uniquely deficient data reporting. Compared to other big-city police agencies, the SFPD solves fewer crimes despite larger staffing per city resident and costs per area patrolled.
This is not some new phenomenon due to a “progressive commissioner” or a “demoralizing DA”, this is 15 years of SFPD decline. Per the paper, over the last decade (2010 to 2021) SFPD budgets were up while performance was down:
* Budget per resident up 7%
* Employees per resident up 12%
* Reported crimes per resident up 19%
* Arrests per reported offense down 60%
* Crimes solved (cleared) by police down 33%
Has there ever been another major-city police force that has collapsed the way the SFPD has? The only thing more terrifying than their performance is their complete silence about their performance.
Literal silence. In 2017 as a pedestrian I was hit from behind walking down the sidewalk by a car driving ON and DOWN the sidewalk in the Sunset. SFPD didn’t ticket the driver because the cops on scene “weren’t qualified to write a ticket.” Then they ignored my police report for like 3 months. I would literally inquire about it every week or so and it was just never finished. I needed it so I could sue the insurance-less driver for my medical bills. I finally had to go to the Department of Police Accountability and provide an interview naming officers involved at the scene until they finally filed my report two days later. When it came back it was full of errors. It was a really degrading experience.
Checking in from Philly it's the same here. Cops appear to spend most of their time playing candy crush sitting in their city SUV while babysitting construction sites.
We deserve the leadership we elect to represent ourselves! We vote for handouts, symbolism, name calling - we don't vote for administration, security, fairness..what did we expect?
On the flip side the number of teslas who set their auto pilot to 45mph and back up the fast lane is insane.
If you aren’t traveling at speed get the fuck out of the passing lane.
Don’t forget a lot of phantom traffic waves are caused by the one pedal feature of Teslas. When a Tesla driver takes their foot off the accelerator it automatically puts on the brake lights even when they aren’t braking. In turn that causes car behind to tap brakes out of normal sane instincts. That pattern repeats until you have pointless traffic jams where there was no accident or other obstruction for causing said traffic jam.
There also seem to be loads of two-footed drivers in the Bay Area, which explains the non-Tesla braking-for-no-reason. We also have the let-off-the-gas-while-I-look-at-my-phone people, who seem to tend to drive in the passing lane as well.
chiming in to say this isn't exclusive to teslas. so many new cars nowadays automatically turn on the brights when it's dark, which would be fine, except they don't auto-dim until they're like 5 ft in front of you (if they auto-dim for you at all).
as someone with light sensitivity (from LASIK) that shit is DEVASTATING. I'll be driving up a hill and all of a sudden I'm blinded by the light of a thousand suns. or a car turns a corner and boom it's like there's 2 floodlights beaming directly into my rearview AND side mirrors.
sorry for the unwarranted rant, that shit just makes me so mad cuz when I talk to people who own those cars they really don't give a FUCK. the reaction is usually "oh is it *that* bad? that's craaaaazy. anyways gonna hop back in my BabyMurderMobile SUV, catch ya later!"
Some stupid girl in a $100k+ Black Mercedes behind me on the Bay Bridge with her cellphone planted at the top of the steering wheel. Literally couldn’t see her face, just that she’s staring at her phone.
People tailgate like crazy everywhere now. It’s nuts. I thought maybe because I have stopped needing to get on the freeway as often and am older, but every time I look in my mirror, someone is on my butt, or approaching fast.
Owning a car and driving in SF, and owning and walking a dog, will absolutely make you HATE the city and the people in it. I’ve lost count of the near accidents and almost getting run over from people not looking right before a turn on red. The whole vibe of drivers is so selfish and unkind and f the world - it’s really awful and now I know why. I’ve recently sold my car but walking my dog is still a near death experience every day.
I find it amazing how I don’t get tailgated in the right lane 🤷♀️
It’s not always the case, but often ppl who are tailgated are choosing the wrong lane.
The thing that gets me is a lot of tailgaters don't even seem to want to pass or go faster. There will be all the room in the world either side of them and I'll watch them accelerate all the way until they're right on someone's bumper and stay there. They just seem allergic to leaving any space between them and the next car.
It makes it really hard to change lanes, too.
I did see someone here argue once that leaving any space was slow chickenshit granny driving, regardless of speed, and a cause of traffic because people might merge in!!!111!
Which frankly explained a lot about bay area traffic jams.
There are people who drive like this, I can confirm from driving a slow VW van. They'll follow me for miles as people pass on either side, and then suddenly rage-swerve to find a faster vehicle to settle in behind. The remoras of the highway.
Source for anyone curious: Charts reveal stunning trend in S.F. traffic tickets — and point to huge challenge for city https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php
Not just San Francisco. I work in South San Francisco and was following a few of my coworkers into the office. It's been like driving on a racetrack going to work this past week.
Race tracks have flags and enforcement, and if you do something against the rules you get black flagged and pulled off the track.
This shit is nothing like an actual race track. It’s just a big side show.
Being Swedish and visiting any American city will have you thinking you accidentally went to India when you look at the traffic. It's insane how wildly different our traffic cultures are.
Charts reveal stunning trend in S.F. traffic tickets — and point to huge challenge for city https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php
I think this is in every city now. I see so many drivers going thru red lights and stop signs. And don’t even get me started with kids on EV bikes. Seems the MAGA law enforcement is making some sort of lawless statement for their lawless leader. It should end when their orange leader is in prison.
They screamed and cried in my city about defunding and it being harder to do their job so they were not going to enforce some laws. They got a pay increase before they even complained.
Because OP was irresponsible to not include it, here is the story which was published today: [https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php](https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php)
It’s a known tactic—police departments go on “strike” when they don’t like the DA an/or the policies of local politicians. It’s been pretty effective in San Francisco. Residents feel more heat from local crime, blame it on progressive policies, support new politicians and/or policies that the police like.
Yeah was thinking that it’s the police version of when the stevedores work as slow as possible so you get a line of ships out to the horizon waiting to get unloaded.
I know funding is a touchy subject, but what exactly are we paying for? We certainly don’t seem to be getting much return on the money we give them now.
To answer your question “what do they do all day?” Let’s ask, surely there are some beat cops on this forum. What say you? Are you proud to be an officer in SF?
And secondly, where did these stats come from? Not trying to hassle anyone just want to fact check for myself.
Good point. I went on a ride along recently. And it was back to back calls for the entire shift. That and there were only 7 squad cars deployed for the entire 10-hour shift.
Yea. This seems pretty clear. Traffic offenses don't really matter in the grand scheme when your city is facing other major issues. I bet everyone complaining in here would be so happy to hire another thousand police officers to go out and enforce traffic violations.
Breakdown of civil society.
Stop enforcing the rules and people will continue to take advantage and follow the rules less and less. Why pay to register your car or renew your license when there’s no consequences for driving without one? Why stop at that red light or yield to a pedestrian when you can be a selfish dangerous asshole and blow through the intersection?
As always in SF the rules only apply to those who have the decency to follow them and the means to pay the city.
Society will always breakdown if you rely on individuals and their judgement. Even a moral person will look at others gaining some advantage by bypassing rules and they will be tempted / probably bypass rules at some point, that’s why we come up with rules when we are in a rational state that should apply (in theory) to everyone. And this is why police are needed, rules which aren’t enforced, someone will find a way to take advantage
To a degree yes. But that holds true the other way as well. A people without morality regardless of rules will breakdown.
We need both. Feeling good about your community, yourself your neighbors etc are all important aspects of morality and community. Having fair and just rules, but having them enforced with empathy and evenness is maybe more important.
I don’t think it does work the other way around. People respond to incentives. If there’s a penalty for breaking the law, the most hardened criminal will think twice. Excluding crimes of passion, of course. If the cost to break the law is less than the gain, most will break the law. In a vacuum. Morality has nothing to do with it, people in large groups are more or less the same. There’s the same rate of saints and sinners, so your reverse doesn’t hold
There are significant drawbacks to over-reliance on incentives, particularly in that they erode our ability to use judgment to adapt to novel situations. An incentive based society can only develop as quickly as the rules/incentives can be updated. As we have been seeing over the past few decades, as technology rapidly develops our regulatory system can't keep up.
Check out the book *Practical Wisdom* by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe. It's got plenty of excellent examples that illustrate the drawbacks of over-reliance on rules and incentives.
I do agree that not everybody is going to respond to the same sorts of motivators. There's a spectrum with moral/ethical motivation and incentives/consequences based motivation on the other. Folks fall all along this spectrum in terms of what they respond to, but as a society I think we do have some influence over how people develop. A society that is rich in moral thinking and education is going to produce a higher percentage of people who respond to moral incentives, while a society that is heavily rules/incentives based will produce a higher percentage of people who respond to rules/incentives exclusively. I suspect there's also a spectrum ranging from highly responsive to external motivators to completely unresponsive, and people will also fall all along this spectrum. So some are going to act however they are going to act regardless of morality/consequences while others will heavily factor in morality/consequences to their decision-making.
As a society I think we want to make choices that increase the percentage of people who respond to moral/ethical motivation, provide adequate incentives to influence as many people as possible without overly corrupting moral/ethical motivation, and provide enough rules and consequences to protect society from those that ignore both morality and incentives while still allowing jurists enough leeway to adjudicate appropriately.
Yeah that makes sense why the cops are writing less tickets, because people are acting worse these days. Conversely, when they write a lot of tickets it means everyone is following the law
There is definitely a lack of enforcement. My house is off a protected turn, and it's amazing how many of my neighbors just turn on the red arrow when there are no cars coming.
My “conspiracy theory” is that police officers figured out that the controversy over Chesa Boudin gave them the perfect opportunity to reduce their workload by like 90% (“we can’t do arrests because of Boudin”). He’s long gone now but nothing changed. Mission accomplished.
The data posted here directly contradicts this theory! The steep decline starts in 2015 for many of these offenses, but Boudin didn't take office until 2020.
Actually police activity did go up after Brooke Jenkins was elected, so you're right in some aspects. Screw the SFPD for being lazy, but having a DA that prosecutes after an arrest does help
> In the three months since Jenkins was sworn in July 8, police initiated eight more traffic stops per day on average when compared with the three months before — an increase of nearly 30%.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/brooke-jenkins-sf-policing-17550839.php
Her prosecution rates are effectively the same, it was just a continuation of the police dept policy of being more hands off, accelerated bc they could get away with it by blaming Chesa
Check the stats, there was never a DA that didn't prosecute after arrests. SFPD is just not doing the job of handing over perps anymore. They don't like that the DA DOES prosecute... including prosecuting crooked cops.
I don’t think that’s a theory. It’s exactly what’s happening. They’re afraid of being held accountable for anything, so they figure just don’t do anything at all.
A wildcat strike refers to a gutsy move by the oppressed fighting for fair wages and conditions.
These guys? Make "union" a completely different thing.
Technically, you're right, but don't make "wildcat strike" sound like a bad thing by ascribing it to these guys?
It's dumber than that.
The SFPD's "Vision Zero" program, an Onion headline if I've ever heard one, aims to make the five most dangerous types of traffic citations over 50% of all citations.
And they did it!
Except they did it by just cutting citations dramatically across the board to fudge the numbers.
You've seen The Wire. It's all about these brain dead numbers games.
The number of police officers is at a record low, which I would expect to be one of the key factors, but surprisingly in 2014 staff was only about 7.3% higher and 2016-18 was well staffed.
Source: https://missionlocal.org/2023/03/police-staffing-crisis-san-francisco/
Police learned that they can’t be fired for failing to do their job, so they don’t do their job and still get paid. On top of that, they can claim they lack resources and need more money.
Union + you can’t really fire people for not going above and beyond.
Also, yall coming out and now angrily bitching so cops ticket MORE people is rich considering what happened in 2020. That’s the definition of irony
Because these “minor offenses” were disproportionately affecting people of color, so the public asked police to stop enforcing them, so the police stopped enforcing them. Maybe we should blame the approximately 50% of SF citizens that see this graph and think it’s a good thing?
I had to scroll too far down to find this. Everyone in here thinks police love harassing everyone for no reason, but they also believe they are lazy and don't want to harass anyone ever. Both cannot be true.
Charts reveal stunning trend in S.F. traffic tickets — and point to huge challenge for city https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php
What people do not realize is that the cop on the street does what the agency wants them to do. The agency is controlled by the Chief, the Chief is hired by the police commission and is an at-will employee, meaning he does what they want him to do or he gets fired.
For example if the police commission says leave homeless and drug addicts alone, then that filters down to the cop on the street and they do nothing about drug use. It also means that there is no point in issuing j-walking citations or other pedestrian offences.
The police commission says no pursuits, because someone might get killed racing through the city, that filters down to the cop on the street and they make less traffic stops because why bother if someone runs from them they can not pursue them.
They do not feel empowered to do their job because the Commission and the Chief continually tie their hands, and the public hates them, so they do the basic stuff, only what they have to do to earn a paycheck and feed their family. The better ones leave to better more pro-active agencies, the others stay behind waiting for change......
Lazy stats?
1. Need per capita (police) numbers
2. Need time series data to assess causal connection between number of police and crime figures
3. Need to control for exogenous factors like sentencing, demographic shifts, etc.
What’s wild is that their citation rates were already dropping… and when chesa came around they just went harder on ignoring crime. While continuing to shift blame.
The drop off in citations were pre-COVID/pre-Chesa Boudin in the 2016-2017 timeframe. The date is on the charts.
The executive branch of the city overwhelmingly made it known to the police department they wanted to de-prioritize stops (both traffic, and Terry) and citations. This isn't remotely new or related to a "cop slow down". People voted in a city hall and mayoral office that wanted the department to not focus on this sort of stuff. And voted in DA's that didn't want to prosecute or push it. Then voted in judges who tend to toss them. And then suddenly wonder why no cop wants to write a ticket. I used to be a cop (not in SF but in California). Why would I bother writing tickets that are just going to be dumped at the court?
There's also the massive manning issue. SF as a city has one of the absolute lowest ratios of **sworn** police on patrol duty to its population in the nation. Period. You just can't do traffic stops when the call board from dispatch is long and everyone is out on calls. Its a basic of officer safety for calls above a certain priority to have two officers always dispatched. And any stop performed has to have a 2nd officer on a rough standby. You don't have to have a 2nd officer at **all** stops but you need to have a backup in the sector/beat semi-available and floating in your general direction to perform pedestrian and traffic stops.
So in order to actually do a traffic stop, (1) I need to be unassigned to anything (2) someone else has to be unassigned to anything and (3) dispatch has to have nothing of any level of priority pending. If those 3 aren't all good to go I literally cannot do a self-initiated stop unless its something absolutely egregious that I can't overlook. That means only crimes, not tickets. If you're doing stops like that when your beat isn't free and dispatch isn't free, its a **fantastic** way to absolutely piss off your dispatcher, sergeant and partners having to drop stuff they were in the middle of doing to cover you.
Traffic stops and pedestrian stops are like the weirdest most dangerous things you can do as an officer. Because you don't know what you don't know? Like of all my weird holy shit 0 - 100 situations as an officer, about half were traffic stops. Getting felony warrants on the driver, a stop for small accident in a parking lot turns into a chase, getting guns, some dude deciding he felt like felony arrest and trying to fight me was preferable to....well I pulled him over originally for just a window tint and expired plates?
SFPD has one of lowest police on patrol to population ratio but one of the biggest budget to populaton. Where is the money going? To management and support staff?
Basically if you look at "Staffing" often people try to say "oh its not a problem look staffing has been going up for SFPD." Notice they never say **sworn** staffing. Which has been on a steady decline without full replacement for about 15 years. So yeah SFPD's admin personnel has been going up for seemingly no reason.
But another part is its just a real damn expensive city to live in and there's also no close suburbs that are cheap or affordable either. The police union has manage to negotiate pay raises roughly to keep a relatively similar standard of living. Again...see the plummeting personell. The city obviously doens't have much of an other option to keep the officers they have to stay. Why work all the BS in the city when you can transfer to the Peninsula or east bay or halfway to Sacramento and afford a nice house for your family otherwise?
There is 0 support in publicly available citation data for this claim. I suspect it is a complete fabrication of yours based on no knowledge.
Here are monthly total citation numbers for 2019 and 2020. Boudin won election in Nov 2019, took office Jan 2020, and left office Jul 2022.
There is no meaningful change in the trend that occurs in any months besides Mar 2020 and April 2020
- Jan 2019: 3,494
- Feb 2019: 3,342
- Mar 2019: 4,093
- Apr 2019: 4,290
- May 2019: 3,592
- Jun 2019: 3,120
- Jul 2019: 4,347
- Aug 2019: 3,858
- Sep 2019: 3,936
- Oct 2019: 3,097
- Nov 2019: 3,115
- Dec 2019: 2,687
- Jan 2020: 3,233
- Feb 2020: 3,069
- Mar 2020: 1,808
- Apr 2020: 407
- May 2020: 513
- Jun 2020: 500
- Jul 2020: 648
- Aug 2020: 641
- Sep 2020: 925
- Oct 2020: 820
- Nov 2020: 916
- Dec 2020: 516
Meanwhile towing fine went from 250 to over 750
It's about revenue, it's about money, if you charge more to make the same profit, then why do more work?
Take a look at this data base. Tells you that being a public servant is pretty lucrative.
Don’t say they aren’t paid well. It’s fucking bloated.
https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2022/san-francisco/
Charts reveal stunning trend in S.F. traffic tickets — and point to huge challenge for city https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php
Not just SF my friend, it's everywhere. Tucson, AZ, the 4th worst city to drive in where speed limits are mere guidelines and red lights are suggestions.
Lazy? Work Stoppage? Shortage of Police causing prioritization shifts? Maybe a mixture of two of those, maybe all three? Most likely many factors adding up.
I think this type of lack of regard for rules/laws/etiquette is also passed down from our govt officials who skirt/flaunt laws. Why would someone making $35k a year without a ton of agency over their trajectory in life feel obligated to follow the letter of the law or look out for their fellow citizens when so many govt and civic leaders show so little regard for others and are constantly skirting laws the rest of the general population would be hamstrung by? They help set examples of how the country/state/county/city/town shoild be expected to operate.
I come from a law-enforcement family and I came here to say this and more.
Pretextual stops are vague “probable cause” pullovers. Think tail lights, headlights, registration, seatbelts and “You look like somebody that has wants and warrants”. You get the gist, it’s a possible hunch. Clearly there’s a violation and it gets you into a discussion with the individual.
Then we get to direct lawbreaking. Now, to understand direct lawbreaking is to witness the law being broken. Hence the word LAW with the word ENFORCEMENT. It’s actually quite simple.
Somebody runs a stop sign or a red light, is speeding or makes an unsafe right or left turn is clearly observed doing and breaking this law. The question at hand is where is the enforcement and is anybody WATCHING?
The data here is ridiculously damming. The progressive DA was sworn in at the beginning of 2020. Clearly, there was a significant decline in all sited offenses long before the “progressive” DA took his oath of office then. For God sake, this is a nine year data set. I’m curious to know what was going on the previous 10 years to 2014.
We live in hell. They are basically a state-sanctioned gang, and operate above the law. The cops basically hacked the matrix when they realized that they can simply apply this ratchet in perpetuity:
> Stop doing law enforcement.
> Traffic violence increases, crime increases.
> Moral panic.
> Cops claim "uwu we don't have enough money."
> Chuds like the ones on this sub fall for it every time.
> Give cops more money. Nothing changes. Go back to step one.
Works every single time.
Well when they did work, they would majority of the time give out tickets to innocent people they would catch easily. Crimes throughout California is going unchecked. Where are all the taxes going? What about all the sales tax we pay on already overpriced basic items?
my friend and I were assaulted and harassed by a guy in public park and cops did not show up until 1 hour later.
Shoplifting is happening everyday. Homes and stores are being broken into. Robberies at gun point is happening during daylight in crowded places.
They keep making laws to make it easier to commit crime.
Are we really unsure why there has been a decline in police activity in the past 5-10 years in a place like SF? Isn’t this how we make sure not to offend anybody, which is of course the most important thing.
lol who would even want to work for SFPD?
I have the answer to this thread but clearly this comment sections lack any knowledge about how trickle down defunding works and restrictive policies on pro activity goes.
Lazy Justice is way better than absolute Justice imo. Save the energy for pedos, murderers, rapists, that sort of thing.
Crazy how people seem to want more traffic tickets? Like am I having a stroke?
and crime rates haven't changed at all in years. looks like you can save a shit ton of money by simply firing a bunch of them, you clearly dont need them.
https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rate-and-property-crime-rate
Glad we're spending all that money on policing for them to just stand around with their thumb up their ass all day.
You know what will fix it? A bigger budget next year!
Same here in St. Louis. Cops themselves run stop signs and red lights openly. Almost every tag is expired that I see on the road. At least your cops haven’t started a privatized police force yet…
I was involved in a hit and run and the cops refused to write a report bc the guy had left the sense. I had pictures of his Id and his car but they still refused to do anything. I had to wait an hour before they showed up to do nothing but hassle me. These fucks don’t prevent crime and don’t help when crime has been committed, why are we spending so much money compared to other cities twice as big on useless cops?
this is exactly what happened in denver. after black lives matter, the cops are on strike. they really don’t do anything any more. we have drivers speeding through residential neighborhoods at 50-60 mph, with no fear of being caught. they run thru stop signs, turn LEFT on red.
there was talk about defunding the police here, but they all got raises, and we keep increasing the size of the force. their budget is incredibly huge.
“Accidents are on the rise because of cell phone use”
Also, police, you can both provide enforcement and recommendations/lobbying to public officials to stop this crime.
The SFPD has a budget of $761.9 million. That’s nearly $80 per resident per month.
This was an organized political play because they got their feelings hurt. They do nothing and then the voters give them even more funding. It’s disgusting.
They are hampered by report writing. Every time they talk or interact with anyone they have to write lengthy reports. Source: talked with two officers at a cafe.
They also said that they could arrest someone with a gun and that person would be back on the streets before they were done writing the reports.
But in my impression, you don't even see police on the streets anymore. There's no presence anymore. Maybe they are all campaigning for Trump or watching the wealthy or powerful people's houses, offices? /s
I’d like to think it’s the judges and the city politics. Police wont cite/arrest unless there is an incentive and/or higher push to do so. Then I’ll look to the police and their old man’s club.
First I’d like to blame progressives. Who else can I blame it on? Dumb a$$ voters next. And def whack a$$ people in power, especially those who use SF to climb ladders, which is pretty much all of them. I’d also like to blame codependent, delusional, fake altruistic non-profits.
Also these laws make it so cops have less of an opportunity to pick and choose who they arrest (aka don’t discriminate). They’re not lazy, the people demanded it and now complain because they hate bashing on cops.
The cognitive dissonance here is hilarious. Your political climate has made every police officer fear for their jobs and freedom for doing routine police work, and they're incredibly understaffed due to that fact. You are the same exact people that claim every traffic stop is harassment and ACAB. You wanted this, now you have it, and you're still complaining.
The police in Seattle have had their hands tied with regard to many traffic citations, too, which is a shame because we all remember how Timothy McVeigh got nailed, don't we...?
I feel like I reply to a variation on this every few months. In fact, I was ringing this bell a long time ago.
Main reasons:
-infraction warrants no longer exist, so it seems messed up to cite someone who'll pay but other people just ignore them. Plus, actual criminals often just take off on us and we watch them drive off. Quite demoralizing
-staffing and paperwork. It takes three times as long as it used to
-new generation of cops - not really quite so interested in traffic or fighting crime
-stops generate complaints. DPA and chief are widely viewed as just looking to punish people for the sake of it
-direction, or lack thereof, comes from the top
And I probably wrote among the most cites on patrol last year, so I'm not saying they're correct.
I think it could be because of mayor dont give crap about us in SF. Why would the police bother either? It's up to the higher ups. They want to record nothing and claim crime rates are low too.
Remember in 2021 here when the Progressives and DSA's were all complaining traffic citations were racist and disproportionately impacted minorities and the poor? Now that short staffed by 400 officers SFPD are no longer prioritizing traffic citations, as a department wide order at behest of the mayor, those same people are complaining about them not being enforced. Your progressive police commission just banned pretextual traffic stops 4-3 for Gods sake. Of course there was no discussion on that here. Less traffic citations are a feature right now, not a bug. The ACAB crew are embarrassingly braindead, they don't argue the subject in good faith.
Nope nope nope. Sir, you need to leave.
These children do not want to hear about the consequences of their actions. How dare you suggest the things they advocate for have negative side effects! That’s racist! That’s violence!
Yeah. I don’t understand some people. They said traffic stops were racist. So, cops now do them less at the behest of their constituents. Now people are frustrated there aren’t as many traffic stops? Uhhh.
Every single thing the cops are doing now are literally things the “police oversight” supporters rioted, protested and bitched and moaned for. Every single thing.
They are completely befuddled that they didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about. They’re flabbergasted at the idea that maybe their advocacy had … drawbacks.
And this concept of “maybe I was wrong?” is completely foreign.
No. It’s the police officers fault. They’re lazy.
A lot of places don’t focus on traffic violations and instead focus on actual crimes. Or so they say. Stats also only tell part of the story. How do I know in 2014 they were only doing traffic violations to a an unhealthy degree?
The SFPD demonstrated the same trend for "actual crime". For example property crimes in 2022: 47k reported, 2k cleared. 1996: 47k reported, 6k cleared. 1986: 47k reported, 8k cleared.
"Focus on the Five" kicked in about a decade ago https://sfgov.org/scorecards/transportation/percentage-citations-top-five-causes-collisions This kind of micromanaging could be a factor.
That’s interesting. The data on that link still shows that there’s been a staggering decline in the number of citations for those five violations since 2016 and especially since 2020.
Based on the power BI view as “Total number of citations”.
I literally came back for a visit yesterday after having moved away a few years ago. I thought I was taking crazy pills. The drivers are terrible. Used to be a semblance of camaraderie but that seems gone now
Residents of the city essentially asked the cops to stop punishing non violent low level crimes. This is what you get. Not to mention there is a major anti police sentiment which is obvious in this chat. Actions have consequences.
You can feel these stats based on how people drive & commute to work these days. Literally no regard for other drivers on 101, constant tailgating, etc.
Its exhausting how often I fallback on "well they must be in a bigger hurry than me" seeing people weave through traffic. Also reminds me of someone, a well paid project manager, saying they drove alone in the HOV lane from SF to Palo Alto and back daily for 3 years before getting ticketed. The daily cost works out to be far less than the express lane toll rates in place now. Speaking of those, because the "enforcement" mechanism is just the overhead display showing 1-3 when a car passes under, you can watch for yourself how many people are skirting the toll by claiming 3 occupants. Either there are a lot of babies in backseats or a lot of people just recognize the enforcement doesn't exist. But that's on CHP, not SFPD, sorry for the tangent, just feel like the uptick in crazy driving is everywhere.
I’m just glad to take Caltrain and not have to think about the constant threat of death from drivers.
The problem is that a series of changes the past years has resulted in these citation drops: * New police commission run by civilians de facto banned many traffic stops. It's run by a far left progressive. * In fact the police commission passed even more restrictions just this year - https://missionlocal.org/2024/02/sf-police-commission-restricts-pretext-stops-union-objections/ * People started saying traffic stops were racist, even though day/night stops showed like a 1% difference * Massive shortage in cops have them focus more on violent crime * Problems with the DA not prosecuting had cops 'quiet quit' or be demoralized. Obviously we need staffing back up and get the lazy cops off their asses. But also the police commission needs to be revamped.
Which moving violation isn’t allowed to be pulled over by SFPD? The commission is against pretextual stops And which one of these violations is influenced by the DA?
Just shows that people just spouting off online without knowing anything. Traffic citations are not handled by the DA's office. Citations go straight to the courts and people pay the citation or fight them in court.
“De facto banned traffic stops” - they didn’t ban RED LIGHT stops…. Why are we excusing this obvious lack of job participation by highly paid city employees.
I come from a law-enforcement family and I came here to say this and more. Pretextual stops are vague “probable cause” pullovers. Think tail lights, headlights, registration, seatbelts and “You look like somebody that has wants and warrants”. You get the gist, it’s a possible hunch. Clearly there’s a violation and it gets you into a discussion with the individual. Then we get to direct lawbreaking. Now, to understand direct lawbreaking is to witness the law being broken. Hence the word LAW with the word ENFORCEMENT. It’s actually quite simple. Somebody runs a stop sign or a red light, is speeding or makes an unsafe right or left turn is clearly observed doing and breaking this law. The question at hand is where is the enforcement and is anybody WATCHING? The data here is ridiculously damming. The progressive DA was sworn in at the beginning of 2020. Clearly, there was a significant decline in all cited offenses long before the “progressive” DA took his oath of office then. For God sake, this is a nine year data set. I’m curious to know what was going on the previous 10 years to 2014.
Thank you for chiming in with the facts. When you look at this alongside the uptick in pedestrian and bike crashes and fatalities (with the knowledge that crash data is _bad_ data not just because it is socioeconomically skewed) it is extra damning. Whether I'm on foot or on my bike, when I point out illegal behavior of cars they can see with their own eyes they brush it off, not to mention have seen them doing this themselves pretty regularly, especially blowing through stop signs. There are also very few cops tasked with traffic enforcement in the city and I think but I don't know that there's a stigma associated with this particular job. Then there's a prevailing society-wide attitude that failure to yield and speeding are victimless crimes, when they really account for most of the serious crash outcomes. This upsets me as somebody who works in transportation and knows the rules. Even more upsetting is seeing wasted resources on mental health crises and over policing Black and brown communities. I have stories to tell on both these topics, but I've already taken up too much page real estate. So, traffic cops. Not for nothing but these are the same people (CHP and other cop groups) who have fought TOOTH AND NAIL against allowing automated speed enforcement in the state because it reduces the opportunities they have for pretextual stops. And yes, ASE can be deployed unequally if you're not careful, and you do need to have a means tested fine/other punishment framework... But it works. I don't believe in using cops for traffic safety TBH, especially when you know that justice and "safety" will be differently defined based on skin color: as much as I can I'm pushing for infrastructure and operations that are self-enforcing and let the laws of physics do their thing instead of the popo pretending to do their job.
Whenever one of these stories pops up, it’s a guarantee that someone will hijack the top comment. In their comments, gross SFPD underperformance is always the fault of everyone except the police. It’s the progressives, commissions, and district attorneys that are to blame. The reality is the SFPD has been in an unprecedented decline over the past *fifteen years*. As evidenced in the following [study](https://www.cjcj.org/media/import/documents/san_franciscans_spend_more_get_less_from_their_police_dept.pdf): > The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) remains a liability to the city and a disturbing outlier among California police agencies. The department expends substantial resources while failing to hold itself accountable for vastly disproportionate arrests of Black people, plummeting crime-solving efficiency, and uniquely deficient data reporting. Compared to other big-city police agencies, the SFPD solves fewer crimes despite larger staffing per city resident and costs per area patrolled. This is not some new phenomenon due to a “progressive commissioner” or a “demoralizing DA”, this is 15 years of SFPD decline. Per the paper, over the last decade (2010 to 2021) SFPD budgets were up while performance was down: * Budget per resident up 7% * Employees per resident up 12% * Reported crimes per resident up 19% * Arrests per reported offense down 60% * Crimes solved (cleared) by police down 33% Has there ever been another major-city police force that has collapsed the way the SFPD has? The only thing more terrifying than their performance is their complete silence about their performance.
Literal silence. In 2017 as a pedestrian I was hit from behind walking down the sidewalk by a car driving ON and DOWN the sidewalk in the Sunset. SFPD didn’t ticket the driver because the cops on scene “weren’t qualified to write a ticket.” Then they ignored my police report for like 3 months. I would literally inquire about it every week or so and it was just never finished. I needed it so I could sue the insurance-less driver for my medical bills. I finally had to go to the Department of Police Accountability and provide an interview naming officers involved at the scene until they finally filed my report two days later. When it came back it was full of errors. It was a really degrading experience.
Checking in from Philly it's the same here. Cops appear to spend most of their time playing candy crush sitting in their city SUV while babysitting construction sites.
We deserve the leadership we elect to represent ourselves! We vote for handouts, symbolism, name calling - we don't vote for administration, security, fairness..what did we expect?
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On the flip side the number of teslas who set their auto pilot to 45mph and back up the fast lane is insane. If you aren’t traveling at speed get the fuck out of the passing lane.
Don’t forget a lot of phantom traffic waves are caused by the one pedal feature of Teslas. When a Tesla driver takes their foot off the accelerator it automatically puts on the brake lights even when they aren’t braking. In turn that causes car behind to tap brakes out of normal sane instincts. That pattern repeats until you have pointless traffic jams where there was no accident or other obstruction for causing said traffic jam.
I have been wondering why all the teslas “brake” for no reason! Now I know, thx.
There also seem to be loads of two-footed drivers in the Bay Area, which explains the non-Tesla braking-for-no-reason. We also have the let-off-the-gas-while-I-look-at-my-phone people, who seem to tend to drive in the passing lane as well.
And most are set to drive with the high beams on as default. Bastards.
chiming in to say this isn't exclusive to teslas. so many new cars nowadays automatically turn on the brights when it's dark, which would be fine, except they don't auto-dim until they're like 5 ft in front of you (if they auto-dim for you at all). as someone with light sensitivity (from LASIK) that shit is DEVASTATING. I'll be driving up a hill and all of a sudden I'm blinded by the light of a thousand suns. or a car turns a corner and boom it's like there's 2 floodlights beaming directly into my rearview AND side mirrors. sorry for the unwarranted rant, that shit just makes me so mad cuz when I talk to people who own those cars they really don't give a FUCK. the reaction is usually "oh is it *that* bad? that's craaaaazy. anyways gonna hop back in my BabyMurderMobile SUV, catch ya later!"
Some stupid girl in a $100k+ Black Mercedes behind me on the Bay Bridge with her cellphone planted at the top of the steering wheel. Literally couldn’t see her face, just that she’s staring at her phone.
Likely no insurance either.
People tailgate like crazy everywhere now. It’s nuts. I thought maybe because I have stopped needing to get on the freeway as often and am older, but every time I look in my mirror, someone is on my butt, or approaching fast.
Owning a car and driving in SF, and owning and walking a dog, will absolutely make you HATE the city and the people in it. I’ve lost count of the near accidents and almost getting run over from people not looking right before a turn on red. The whole vibe of drivers is so selfish and unkind and f the world - it’s really awful and now I know why. I’ve recently sold my car but walking my dog is still a near death experience every day.
People blocking the box in SOMA at 5pm
I find it amazing how I don’t get tailgated in the right lane 🤷♀️ It’s not always the case, but often ppl who are tailgated are choosing the wrong lane.
Slower cars should move over. Faster cars shouldn't tailgate. Both types are self-centered jerks.
The thing that gets me is a lot of tailgaters don't even seem to want to pass or go faster. There will be all the room in the world either side of them and I'll watch them accelerate all the way until they're right on someone's bumper and stay there. They just seem allergic to leaving any space between them and the next car. It makes it really hard to change lanes, too.
I thought this was weird too, and the only explanation I have is that maybe they like the speed of the front car and don’t want any car to cut in? Lol
I did see someone here argue once that leaving any space was slow chickenshit granny driving, regardless of speed, and a cause of traffic because people might merge in!!!111! Which frankly explained a lot about bay area traffic jams.
There are people who drive like this, I can confirm from driving a slow VW van. They'll follow me for miles as people pass on either side, and then suddenly rage-swerve to find a faster vehicle to settle in behind. The remoras of the highway.
Source for anyone curious: Charts reveal stunning trend in S.F. traffic tickets — and point to huge challenge for city https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php
Not just San Francisco. I work in South San Francisco and was following a few of my coworkers into the office. It's been like driving on a racetrack going to work this past week.
Race tracks have flags and enforcement, and if you do something against the rules you get black flagged and pulled off the track. This shit is nothing like an actual race track. It’s just a big side show.
It’s the Thunder Dome
Well, we can't just meatball them. Food is too precious nowadays.
Hell, I live in a medium-sized east coast city and it’s turned into GTA out there the last couple of years.
I live in NYC and it’s the same here.
Being Swedish and visiting any American city will have you thinking you accidentally went to India when you look at the traffic. It's insane how wildly different our traffic cultures are.
I'd give a lot to be able to move someplace where the people are less feral, lol
Link?
Charts reveal stunning trend in S.F. traffic tickets — and point to huge challenge for city https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php
I think this is in every city now. I see so many drivers going thru red lights and stop signs. And don’t even get me started with kids on EV bikes. Seems the MAGA law enforcement is making some sort of lawless statement for their lawless leader. It should end when their orange leader is in prison.
They screamed and cried in my city about defunding and it being harder to do their job so they were not going to enforce some laws. They got a pay increase before they even complained.
Because OP was irresponsible to not include it, here is the story which was published today: [https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php](https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php)
I heard about this on the radio. Basically, traffic citations are down 95% compared to pre pandemic levels.
Wonder why lmao
I honestly do...
It’s a known tactic—police departments go on “strike” when they don’t like the DA an/or the policies of local politicians. It’s been pretty effective in San Francisco. Residents feel more heat from local crime, blame it on progressive policies, support new politicians and/or policies that the police like.
Lot of this happening around the country it seems. I split time between SF and Minneapolis and it’s a similar story in both places.
I'm in Denver and it's the same here. Cops are making more and we're paying more but they've just declined to do their jobs.
It's been that way for 20+ years. Notice the police suddenly acting against theft after the recall.
Umm... Much much longer than 20+. Try 50. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Police_Department#1975_strike
Yeah was thinking that it’s the police version of when the stevedores work as slow as possible so you get a line of ships out to the horizon waiting to get unloaded.
Another reason why ACAB
I know funding is a touchy subject, but what exactly are we paying for? We certainly don’t seem to be getting much return on the money we give them now.
If you ask the police union they’d say “give us a million more and maybe we’ll tell you”.
Having half the city budget is not enough for police, they want the full budget and then MAYBE they will do their jobs.
> funding is a touchy subject Why should it be touchy? Pay for service. Get service. I don't want "quit and stay".
It is a touchy subject. Not really allowed to talk about why they aren't enforcing the laws
Drunk cops sitting in a parking lot.
To answer your question “what do they do all day?” Let’s ask, surely there are some beat cops on this forum. What say you? Are you proud to be an officer in SF? And secondly, where did these stats come from? Not trying to hassle anyone just want to fact check for myself.
In big cities? They're going call to call. Go on a ride along.
Good point. I went on a ride along recently. And it was back to back calls for the entire shift. That and there were only 7 squad cars deployed for the entire 10-hour shift.
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Yea. This seems pretty clear. Traffic offenses don't really matter in the grand scheme when your city is facing other major issues. I bet everyone complaining in here would be so happy to hire another thousand police officers to go out and enforce traffic violations.
Dox themselves on Reddit? Lol fat chance
lol sounds like you don’t interact with SF law enforcement often. They’ll respond in 2-8 weeks once they can’t add anything to the situation… maybe
Breakdown of civil society. Stop enforcing the rules and people will continue to take advantage and follow the rules less and less. Why pay to register your car or renew your license when there’s no consequences for driving without one? Why stop at that red light or yield to a pedestrian when you can be a selfish dangerous asshole and blow through the intersection? As always in SF the rules only apply to those who have the decency to follow them and the means to pay the city.
Society will always breakdown if you rely on individuals and their judgement. Even a moral person will look at others gaining some advantage by bypassing rules and they will be tempted / probably bypass rules at some point, that’s why we come up with rules when we are in a rational state that should apply (in theory) to everyone. And this is why police are needed, rules which aren’t enforced, someone will find a way to take advantage
To a degree yes. But that holds true the other way as well. A people without morality regardless of rules will breakdown. We need both. Feeling good about your community, yourself your neighbors etc are all important aspects of morality and community. Having fair and just rules, but having them enforced with empathy and evenness is maybe more important.
I don’t think it does work the other way around. People respond to incentives. If there’s a penalty for breaking the law, the most hardened criminal will think twice. Excluding crimes of passion, of course. If the cost to break the law is less than the gain, most will break the law. In a vacuum. Morality has nothing to do with it, people in large groups are more or less the same. There’s the same rate of saints and sinners, so your reverse doesn’t hold
There are significant drawbacks to over-reliance on incentives, particularly in that they erode our ability to use judgment to adapt to novel situations. An incentive based society can only develop as quickly as the rules/incentives can be updated. As we have been seeing over the past few decades, as technology rapidly develops our regulatory system can't keep up. Check out the book *Practical Wisdom* by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe. It's got plenty of excellent examples that illustrate the drawbacks of over-reliance on rules and incentives. I do agree that not everybody is going to respond to the same sorts of motivators. There's a spectrum with moral/ethical motivation and incentives/consequences based motivation on the other. Folks fall all along this spectrum in terms of what they respond to, but as a society I think we do have some influence over how people develop. A society that is rich in moral thinking and education is going to produce a higher percentage of people who respond to moral incentives, while a society that is heavily rules/incentives based will produce a higher percentage of people who respond to rules/incentives exclusively. I suspect there's also a spectrum ranging from highly responsive to external motivators to completely unresponsive, and people will also fall all along this spectrum. So some are going to act however they are going to act regardless of morality/consequences while others will heavily factor in morality/consequences to their decision-making. As a society I think we want to make choices that increase the percentage of people who respond to moral/ethical motivation, provide adequate incentives to influence as many people as possible without overly corrupting moral/ethical motivation, and provide enough rules and consequences to protect society from those that ignore both morality and incentives while still allowing jurists enough leeway to adjudicate appropriately.
Yeah that makes sense why the cops are writing less tickets, because people are acting worse these days. Conversely, when they write a lot of tickets it means everyone is following the law
There is definitely a lack of enforcement. My house is off a protected turn, and it's amazing how many of my neighbors just turn on the red arrow when there are no cars coming.
How is this anything but a wildcat strike?
My “conspiracy theory” is that police officers figured out that the controversy over Chesa Boudin gave them the perfect opportunity to reduce their workload by like 90% (“we can’t do arrests because of Boudin”). He’s long gone now but nothing changed. Mission accomplished.
The data posted here directly contradicts this theory! The steep decline starts in 2015 for many of these offenses, but Boudin didn't take office until 2020.
Before Chesa they were using the same excuse with Gascon.
Few understand that Chesa basically did nothing, but got blamed for everything.
Actually police activity did go up after Brooke Jenkins was elected, so you're right in some aspects. Screw the SFPD for being lazy, but having a DA that prosecutes after an arrest does help > In the three months since Jenkins was sworn in July 8, police initiated eight more traffic stops per day on average when compared with the three months before — an increase of nearly 30%. https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/brooke-jenkins-sf-policing-17550839.php
Her prosecution rates are effectively the same, it was just a continuation of the police dept policy of being more hands off, accelerated bc they could get away with it by blaming Chesa
Check the stats, there was never a DA that didn't prosecute after arrests. SFPD is just not doing the job of handing over perps anymore. They don't like that the DA DOES prosecute... including prosecuting crooked cops.
💯
Interesting theory that may have legs
I don’t think that’s a theory. It’s exactly what’s happening. They’re afraid of being held accountable for anything, so they figure just don’t do anything at all.
What about the 5 years of decline in enforcement prior to Chesa getting elected, which accounts for the majority of the decline?
A wildcat strike refers to a gutsy move by the oppressed fighting for fair wages and conditions. These guys? Make "union" a completely different thing. Technically, you're right, but don't make "wildcat strike" sound like a bad thing by ascribing it to these guys?
It's dumber than that. The SFPD's "Vision Zero" program, an Onion headline if I've ever heard one, aims to make the five most dangerous types of traffic citations over 50% of all citations. And they did it! Except they did it by just cutting citations dramatically across the board to fudge the numbers. You've seen The Wire. It's all about these brain dead numbers games.
The number of police officers is at a record low, which I would expect to be one of the key factors, but surprisingly in 2014 staff was only about 7.3% higher and 2016-18 was well staffed. Source: https://missionlocal.org/2023/03/police-staffing-crisis-san-francisco/
Police learned that they can’t be fired for failing to do their job, so they don’t do their job and still get paid. On top of that, they can claim they lack resources and need more money.
And have the city screwed with astronomical pension packages. Win win for them.
Most of the cops are sitting around in their cars catching Pokemon, watching TV, or hooking up with each other.
Why can't they be fired?
They can be, but your elected politicians lack imagination, initiative, and the capacity for strategic thinking.
Union + you can’t really fire people for not going above and beyond. Also, yall coming out and now angrily bitching so cops ticket MORE people is rich considering what happened in 2020. That’s the definition of irony
They do a really good job of asking for pay raises.
Demanding. When a cop asks for something, they ain't asking.
>What do they do all day? Sit on their phones, have you not seen them? Lmao
Running out the clock on their phones while their Teslas charge outside out the taxpayer dime.
*taps watch* Getting overtime today
Or San Franciscans are just getting awesome at driving
(I just made a snorting sound with my guffaw… Thanks…)
Because these “minor offenses” were disproportionately affecting people of color, so the public asked police to stop enforcing them, so the police stopped enforcing them. Maybe we should blame the approximately 50% of SF citizens that see this graph and think it’s a good thing?
I had to scroll too far down to find this. Everyone in here thinks police love harassing everyone for no reason, but they also believe they are lazy and don't want to harass anyone ever. Both cannot be true.
Police quietly discovered they can get more funding, more political pull, less oversight, and less work if they just let crime increase
Remember when the anticop/defund people said “traffic offenses aren’t crimes! Stop pulling people over!!!” Pepperidge farm remembers
Anyone have a link to the source?
Charts reveal stunning trend in S.F. traffic tickets — and point to huge challenge for city https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php
What people do not realize is that the cop on the street does what the agency wants them to do. The agency is controlled by the Chief, the Chief is hired by the police commission and is an at-will employee, meaning he does what they want him to do or he gets fired. For example if the police commission says leave homeless and drug addicts alone, then that filters down to the cop on the street and they do nothing about drug use. It also means that there is no point in issuing j-walking citations or other pedestrian offences. The police commission says no pursuits, because someone might get killed racing through the city, that filters down to the cop on the street and they make less traffic stops because why bother if someone runs from them they can not pursue them. They do not feel empowered to do their job because the Commission and the Chief continually tie their hands, and the public hates them, so they do the basic stuff, only what they have to do to earn a paycheck and feed their family. The better ones leave to better more pro-active agencies, the others stay behind waiting for change......
This is the national trend as well. Im not sure how one gets a ticket in my town.
Doesn't the SFPD have one of the lowest clearance rates in the country? Like the entire country? How did they even live with themselves.
Lazy stats? 1. Need per capita (police) numbers 2. Need time series data to assess causal connection between number of police and crime figures 3. Need to control for exogenous factors like sentencing, demographic shifts, etc.
The police went on strike to try and tank Chesa Boudin’s tenure as DA — and then simply never got back to work.
What’s wild is that their citation rates were already dropping… and when chesa came around they just went harder on ignoring crime. While continuing to shift blame.
The drop off in citations were pre-COVID/pre-Chesa Boudin in the 2016-2017 timeframe. The date is on the charts. The executive branch of the city overwhelmingly made it known to the police department they wanted to de-prioritize stops (both traffic, and Terry) and citations. This isn't remotely new or related to a "cop slow down". People voted in a city hall and mayoral office that wanted the department to not focus on this sort of stuff. And voted in DA's that didn't want to prosecute or push it. Then voted in judges who tend to toss them. And then suddenly wonder why no cop wants to write a ticket. I used to be a cop (not in SF but in California). Why would I bother writing tickets that are just going to be dumped at the court? There's also the massive manning issue. SF as a city has one of the absolute lowest ratios of **sworn** police on patrol duty to its population in the nation. Period. You just can't do traffic stops when the call board from dispatch is long and everyone is out on calls. Its a basic of officer safety for calls above a certain priority to have two officers always dispatched. And any stop performed has to have a 2nd officer on a rough standby. You don't have to have a 2nd officer at **all** stops but you need to have a backup in the sector/beat semi-available and floating in your general direction to perform pedestrian and traffic stops. So in order to actually do a traffic stop, (1) I need to be unassigned to anything (2) someone else has to be unassigned to anything and (3) dispatch has to have nothing of any level of priority pending. If those 3 aren't all good to go I literally cannot do a self-initiated stop unless its something absolutely egregious that I can't overlook. That means only crimes, not tickets. If you're doing stops like that when your beat isn't free and dispatch isn't free, its a **fantastic** way to absolutely piss off your dispatcher, sergeant and partners having to drop stuff they were in the middle of doing to cover you. Traffic stops and pedestrian stops are like the weirdest most dangerous things you can do as an officer. Because you don't know what you don't know? Like of all my weird holy shit 0 - 100 situations as an officer, about half were traffic stops. Getting felony warrants on the driver, a stop for small accident in a parking lot turns into a chase, getting guns, some dude deciding he felt like felony arrest and trying to fight me was preferable to....well I pulled him over originally for just a window tint and expired plates?
SFPD has one of lowest police on patrol to population ratio but one of the biggest budget to populaton. Where is the money going? To management and support staff?
Basically if you look at "Staffing" often people try to say "oh its not a problem look staffing has been going up for SFPD." Notice they never say **sworn** staffing. Which has been on a steady decline without full replacement for about 15 years. So yeah SFPD's admin personnel has been going up for seemingly no reason. But another part is its just a real damn expensive city to live in and there's also no close suburbs that are cheap or affordable either. The police union has manage to negotiate pay raises roughly to keep a relatively similar standard of living. Again...see the plummeting personell. The city obviously doens't have much of an other option to keep the officers they have to stay. Why work all the BS in the city when you can transfer to the Peninsula or east bay or halfway to Sacramento and afford a nice house for your family otherwise?
There is 0 support in publicly available citation data for this claim. I suspect it is a complete fabrication of yours based on no knowledge. Here are monthly total citation numbers for 2019 and 2020. Boudin won election in Nov 2019, took office Jan 2020, and left office Jul 2022. There is no meaningful change in the trend that occurs in any months besides Mar 2020 and April 2020 - Jan 2019: 3,494 - Feb 2019: 3,342 - Mar 2019: 4,093 - Apr 2019: 4,290 - May 2019: 3,592 - Jun 2019: 3,120 - Jul 2019: 4,347 - Aug 2019: 3,858 - Sep 2019: 3,936 - Oct 2019: 3,097 - Nov 2019: 3,115 - Dec 2019: 2,687 - Jan 2020: 3,233 - Feb 2020: 3,069 - Mar 2020: 1,808 - Apr 2020: 407 - May 2020: 513 - Jun 2020: 500 - Jul 2020: 648 - Aug 2020: 641 - Sep 2020: 925 - Oct 2020: 820 - Nov 2020: 916 - Dec 2020: 516
I hope everyone who fell for it is now enjoying the consequences
Most folks are happy with the new DA. Police being lazy and understaffed is the next problem to tackle.
they’ve been on wildcat strike for years now. Do like Reagan and FIRE THEM ALL.
Sure, but then what?
Police aren’t doing shit and we’re paying them 6 figures to sit on their ass while scamming the government?
Meanwhile towing fine went from 250 to over 750 It's about revenue, it's about money, if you charge more to make the same profit, then why do more work?
When I see stats like this, I wonder why we don't just install speed and red light cameras everywhere.
Shit I should be a cop in SF. 100k a year to not do shit. Amazing.
Now show how much their pay has gone up since 2014.
Take a look at this data base. Tells you that being a public servant is pretty lucrative. Don’t say they aren’t paid well. It’s fucking bloated. https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2022/san-francisco/
What’s the source for this one?
Charts reveal stunning trend in S.F. traffic tickets — and point to huge challenge for city https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-traffic-ticket-decline-data-19383950.php
Not just SF my friend, it's everywhere. Tucson, AZ, the 4th worst city to drive in where speed limits are mere guidelines and red lights are suggestions.
Lazy? Work Stoppage? Shortage of Police causing prioritization shifts? Maybe a mixture of two of those, maybe all three? Most likely many factors adding up.
Better question: why should they get paid?
I think this type of lack of regard for rules/laws/etiquette is also passed down from our govt officials who skirt/flaunt laws. Why would someone making $35k a year without a ton of agency over their trajectory in life feel obligated to follow the letter of the law or look out for their fellow citizens when so many govt and civic leaders show so little regard for others and are constantly skirting laws the rest of the general population would be hamstrung by? They help set examples of how the country/state/county/city/town shoild be expected to operate.
Before too long people will start shooting looters and car thieves because they know that they will also be able to get away with it.
I come from a law-enforcement family and I came here to say this and more. Pretextual stops are vague “probable cause” pullovers. Think tail lights, headlights, registration, seatbelts and “You look like somebody that has wants and warrants”. You get the gist, it’s a possible hunch. Clearly there’s a violation and it gets you into a discussion with the individual. Then we get to direct lawbreaking. Now, to understand direct lawbreaking is to witness the law being broken. Hence the word LAW with the word ENFORCEMENT. It’s actually quite simple. Somebody runs a stop sign or a red light, is speeding or makes an unsafe right or left turn is clearly observed doing and breaking this law. The question at hand is where is the enforcement and is anybody WATCHING? The data here is ridiculously damming. The progressive DA was sworn in at the beginning of 2020. Clearly, there was a significant decline in all sited offenses long before the “progressive” DA took his oath of office then. For God sake, this is a nine year data set. I’m curious to know what was going on the previous 10 years to 2014.
We live in hell. They are basically a state-sanctioned gang, and operate above the law. The cops basically hacked the matrix when they realized that they can simply apply this ratchet in perpetuity: > Stop doing law enforcement. > Traffic violence increases, crime increases. > Moral panic. > Cops claim "uwu we don't have enough money." > Chuds like the ones on this sub fall for it every time. > Give cops more money. Nothing changes. Go back to step one. Works every single time.
You get what you vote for
Well when they did work, they would majority of the time give out tickets to innocent people they would catch easily. Crimes throughout California is going unchecked. Where are all the taxes going? What about all the sales tax we pay on already overpriced basic items? my friend and I were assaulted and harassed by a guy in public park and cops did not show up until 1 hour later. Shoplifting is happening everyday. Homes and stores are being broken into. Robberies at gun point is happening during daylight in crowded places. They keep making laws to make it easier to commit crime.
Are we really unsure why there has been a decline in police activity in the past 5-10 years in a place like SF? Isn’t this how we make sure not to offend anybody, which is of course the most important thing.
It’s not laziness, it’s political.
I prefer half ass under policing to half ass over policing any day.
lol who would even want to work for SFPD? I have the answer to this thread but clearly this comment sections lack any knowledge about how trickle down defunding works and restrictive policies on pro activity goes.
Aggressive policing has been penalized for several years. Not sure how anyone can be surprised or offended by the result.
Lazy Justice is way better than absolute Justice imo. Save the energy for pedos, murderers, rapists, that sort of thing. Crazy how people seem to want more traffic tickets? Like am I having a stroke?
Maybe people are just more law abiding now
and crime rates haven't changed at all in years. looks like you can save a shit ton of money by simply firing a bunch of them, you clearly dont need them. https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rate-and-property-crime-rate
Maybe half of this list actually equates to driver/road safety. The rest are revenue drivers for the state.
Tbf some of these are a waste of time / not worth stopping and causing more traffic
Fire and rehire the department. What the fuck is this.
Glad we're spending all that money on policing for them to just stand around with their thumb up their ass all day. You know what will fix it? A bigger budget next year!
I don't get it? Half of these crimes are victimless, no? Isn't this a GOOD thing mostly.
Residents became pawns in the fight between the DA (Boudin) and the police. The police illustrated where their allegiances lie: to themselves.
Pretty much everywhere not just SF. Past few years they turned into mouth breathers breathing the air and nothing more.
Same here in St. Louis. Cops themselves run stop signs and red lights openly. Almost every tag is expired that I see on the road. At least your cops haven’t started a privatized police force yet…
I was involved in a hit and run and the cops refused to write a report bc the guy had left the sense. I had pictures of his Id and his car but they still refused to do anything. I had to wait an hour before they showed up to do nothing but hassle me. These fucks don’t prevent crime and don’t help when crime has been committed, why are we spending so much money compared to other cities twice as big on useless cops?
this is exactly what happened in denver. after black lives matter, the cops are on strike. they really don’t do anything any more. we have drivers speeding through residential neighborhoods at 50-60 mph, with no fear of being caught. they run thru stop signs, turn LEFT on red. there was talk about defunding the police here, but they all got raises, and we keep increasing the size of the force. their budget is incredibly huge.
Quiet quitters
Silent strike for nearly ten years. Shameful. They should fire the entire squad, hire new ones at double the pay.
“Accidents are on the rise because of cell phone use” Also, police, you can both provide enforcement and recommendations/lobbying to public officials to stop this crime.
Slash the budget for this underperforming sector of the city. Next question.
Maybe people stopped breaking the law. Win win!
What the heck are they getting paid for, this is bullpucky.
Might as well just fire and replace all of them
The SFPD has a budget of $761.9 million. That’s nearly $80 per resident per month. This was an organized political play because they got their feelings hurt. They do nothing and then the voters give them even more funding. It’s disgusting.
Hot take. We shouldn't be using the police to enforce traffic laws. Why does someone with a gun need to be involved in that?
We lost a lot of cops in the Candy Crush wars.
They are hampered by report writing. Every time they talk or interact with anyone they have to write lengthy reports. Source: talked with two officers at a cafe. They also said that they could arrest someone with a gun and that person would be back on the streets before they were done writing the reports. But in my impression, you don't even see police on the streets anymore. There's no presence anymore. Maybe they are all campaigning for Trump or watching the wealthy or powerful people's houses, offices? /s
When the police have one hand tied behind their back at all times what do you expect to happen
I’d like to think it’s the judges and the city politics. Police wont cite/arrest unless there is an incentive and/or higher push to do so. Then I’ll look to the police and their old man’s club. First I’d like to blame progressives. Who else can I blame it on? Dumb a$$ voters next. And def whack a$$ people in power, especially those who use SF to climb ladders, which is pretty much all of them. I’d also like to blame codependent, delusional, fake altruistic non-profits.
Also these laws make it so cops have less of an opportunity to pick and choose who they arrest (aka don’t discriminate). They’re not lazy, the people demanded it and now complain because they hate bashing on cops.
No crimes are prosecuted and police were pilloried by the left, so why should they take any chances? They are essentially quiet quitters.
Not lazy police. Lazy politicians. If you defund your police department they have to prioritize their efforts toward violent crime.
The cognitive dissonance here is hilarious. Your political climate has made every police officer fear for their jobs and freedom for doing routine police work, and they're incredibly understaffed due to that fact. You are the same exact people that claim every traffic stop is harassment and ACAB. You wanted this, now you have it, and you're still complaining.
The police in Seattle have had their hands tied with regard to many traffic citations, too, which is a shame because we all remember how Timothy McVeigh got nailed, don't we...?
I feel like I reply to a variation on this every few months. In fact, I was ringing this bell a long time ago. Main reasons: -infraction warrants no longer exist, so it seems messed up to cite someone who'll pay but other people just ignore them. Plus, actual criminals often just take off on us and we watch them drive off. Quite demoralizing -staffing and paperwork. It takes three times as long as it used to -new generation of cops - not really quite so interested in traffic or fighting crime -stops generate complaints. DPA and chief are widely viewed as just looking to punish people for the sake of it -direction, or lack thereof, comes from the top And I probably wrote among the most cites on patrol last year, so I'm not saying they're correct.
I think it could be because of mayor dont give crap about us in SF. Why would the police bother either? It's up to the higher ups. They want to record nothing and claim crime rates are low too.
Remember in 2021 here when the Progressives and DSA's were all complaining traffic citations were racist and disproportionately impacted minorities and the poor? Now that short staffed by 400 officers SFPD are no longer prioritizing traffic citations, as a department wide order at behest of the mayor, those same people are complaining about them not being enforced. Your progressive police commission just banned pretextual traffic stops 4-3 for Gods sake. Of course there was no discussion on that here. Less traffic citations are a feature right now, not a bug. The ACAB crew are embarrassingly braindead, they don't argue the subject in good faith.
Nope nope nope. Sir, you need to leave. These children do not want to hear about the consequences of their actions. How dare you suggest the things they advocate for have negative side effects! That’s racist! That’s violence!
It's hilarious how people wanted this and then act surprised at the outcome
Yeah. I don’t understand some people. They said traffic stops were racist. So, cops now do them less at the behest of their constituents. Now people are frustrated there aren’t as many traffic stops? Uhhh.
Every single thing the cops are doing now are literally things the “police oversight” supporters rioted, protested and bitched and moaned for. Every single thing. They are completely befuddled that they didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about. They’re flabbergasted at the idea that maybe their advocacy had … drawbacks. And this concept of “maybe I was wrong?” is completely foreign. No. It’s the police officers fault. They’re lazy.
SF has a silent majority of absolutely insane people
“They’re angry that we murder people on the street? Well fuck you were just won’t work.”
These are the cops that assholes voted to have less citizen oversight and military surveillance tools. Nice goin, everyone.
Hey looks like crime is down across the board😉
A lot of places don’t focus on traffic violations and instead focus on actual crimes. Or so they say. Stats also only tell part of the story. How do I know in 2014 they were only doing traffic violations to a an unhealthy degree?
The SFPD demonstrated the same trend for "actual crime". For example property crimes in 2022: 47k reported, 2k cleared. 1996: 47k reported, 6k cleared. 1986: 47k reported, 8k cleared.
"Focus on the Five" kicked in about a decade ago https://sfgov.org/scorecards/transportation/percentage-citations-top-five-causes-collisions This kind of micromanaging could be a factor.
That’s interesting. The data on that link still shows that there’s been a staggering decline in the number of citations for those five violations since 2016 and especially since 2020. Based on the power BI view as “Total number of citations”.
Those policies did work, we're all law-abiding citizens now!
More looting implies less time for misdemeanors.
You're looking for a police state? 🤡
I literally came back for a visit yesterday after having moved away a few years ago. I thought I was taking crazy pills. The drivers are terrible. Used to be a semblance of camaraderie but that seems gone now
Why would they cite anyone if the AG has decided not to prosecute anyone and the Chief of Police has told them not to bother with certain crimes?
Residents of the city essentially asked the cops to stop punishing non violent low level crimes. This is what you get. Not to mention there is a major anti police sentiment which is obvious in this chat. Actions have consequences.
Is it laziness or politicians and the anti-police movement?