The California Bicycle Coalition supports the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ proposal to deprioritize traffic enforcement stings against people biking cautiously through stop signs. Here’s why we support the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition on this, and why we think people throughout the state should support it as well:
Over their two-day crackdown last summer, the SFPD spent 114 officer-hours ticketing people biking. During a four-week period that included the crackdown, the SFPD invested zero hours on traffic enforcement at Market and Octavia, one of the most dangerous intersections in the country. These misplaced priorities conflict with the city’s ...
The California Bicycle Coalition supports the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ proposal to deprioritize traffic enforcement stings against people biking cautiously through stop signs. Here’s why we support the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition on this, and why we think people throughout the state should support it as well:
Over their two-day crackdown last summer, the SFPD spent 114 officer-hours ticketing people biking. During a four-week period that included the crackdown, the SFPD invested zero hours on traffic enforcement at Market and Octavia, one of the most dangerous intersections in the country. These misplaced priorities conflict with the city’s adopted “Vision Zero” goal of eliminating traffic deaths and severe injuries.
To refocus police priorities, our local partners at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are pursuing a city-wide Bike Yield Law, which would make “citations for bicyclists for failure to stop at a stop sign the city's lowest traffic enforcement priority, provided that the bicyclist first slows to a safe speed and yields the right-of-way to any other vehicle or pedestrian in the intersection.” Though the San Francisco proposal references the Idaho law that permits people approaching an intersection on a bike to treat a stop sign as a yield sign, and a red light as a stop sign, SF’s legislation would not override state law which requires people on bikes follow the same rules as people driving. The law discourages “policing for profit” and targeting people who rely on bikes. Encouraging the Police Department to focus on preventing dangerous behavior keeps them focused on the city’s Vision Zero policy.
To be clear, the California Bicycle Coalition is not pursuing a state law change at this time. But we welcome San Francisco’s experiment to provide information on how such a change reduces collisions and improves safety, and if it encourages people to bike more.
We support our local partners at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and their pursuit of a local Bike Yield Law. If you do too, email Mayor Ed Lee asking him to support the law today.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has vowed to veto the SF bike yield law once it gets to his desk. Let's build statewide pressure to encourage him support this reasonable legislation and open up the possibility for us to examine in-state data on the effects of deprioritization.