Police caught on camera

When a cop does something unexpected or outrageous bystanders are sometimes compelled to capture pictures or video.

What you’re seeing here is a cop issuing a $110 ticket to a driver for double parking in the bike lane. And this isn’t just any cop. This is the Captain of Mission Station.

“I tagged two people today who I’ve warned before,” Captain Perea said.

Cyclists and pedestrians alike seemed confused by the rare sighting. But none more than this Uber driver (pictured above and below) who seemed to be just hanging out between fares. Note the big empty spot he could have pulled into to allow rush hour cyclists access to the bike lane.

“What we’re doing in this district is what all stations are doing across the city. We call it Focus on the Five. Every district will identify the causes of the most collisions.”

Focus on the Five is one of the tools the SFPD is using to support Vision Zero – the city’s goal to eliminate traffic fatalities by 2024. It includes both enforcement and education.

“[Focus on the Five] Is not about tickets, but enforcement is one way we can track data to see how we’re doing.“ Captain Perea continued, “We’re just trying to keep people safe. And this is what we got. So we work with what we’ve got.”

 

TryCaviar.com driver finds an awesome place to park and wait for his order earlier this month.

Before Capt. Perea headed out to write one more ticket, he said, “We have to make sure that the streets are safe for public travel. It’s public safety at its most basic.”

 

23 Responses to “Police caught on camera”

  1. gary says:

    Now if only they would keep Mission street between ….oh 15th and 25th clear of double parked cars, and the intersection of Crescent and Mission where the city just spent a bunch of money painting DO NOT BLOCK, and it is always blocked, usually by MUNI BUSSES!

  2. jd says:

    Awesome. I had forgotten that there were actually bike lanes on Valencia.

  3. Herr Doktor Professor Deth Vegetable says:

    Holy shit, that’s awesome. I thought I’d never see the cops actually ticket someone for this. Now if they’d only make a habit of it, maybe the guilty drivers would actually change their behavior.

  4. wurple says:

    A shitty entitled driver paid to shuttle white people around getting a ticket?!?!?!?!

  5. Yo Mama says:

    Now if only they would ticket bicyclists that don’t use the bike lanes, run stop signs, go the wrong way on one way streets, ride on sidewalks, and on and on and on.
    I bet there would be less bicycle deaths………..
    Not that i really care (about the deaths).

    • Sam says:

      As someone who on rare occasion has to merge out of bike lanes to avoid things like large potholes, are you really saying that you wouldn’t be upset to see me killed?

      (Anyway, hooray about the enforcement!)

    • Lauren says:

      If a bicyclist needs to avoid unsafe conditions in a bike lane, they are allowed by law to move into other vehicle travel lanes. Bicyclists can also “take the lane” for vehicle travel to make turns, to pass vehicles and other bikes, to avoid hazards, and in other circumstances.

      (I’m not defending bicyclists that violate traffic laws like running stop signs, wrong way on one-way streets, sidewalk riding.)

    • Henry Darius says:

      Easy to spout absurdities like that, when you can hide behind anonymity like that, isn’t it?

    • Matt O'Donnell says:

      Yeah, you know it’s not actually the law that cyclists have to use the bike lane, right? We’re entitled to full use of the lane. However, YOU are not allowed in the bike lane.

    • okayplus says:

      People complaining about cyclist behaving badly when police ticket one driver who’s demonstrated a pattern of endangering cyclists, is akin the people who want to yell about black on black crime every time the police murder an unarmed black man or woman. It’s simply missing the point, one has next to nothing to do with the other in scale or cause. Both things are bad, but the amount of shitty drivers on the streets and the potential damage they can cause dwarfs that of cyclists. Also, there’s never been a case of a cyclist hitting a car, killing the driver then fleeing the scene.

    • Dude says:

      Welllll, you’re wrong – statistically speaking the injuries to drivers, pedestrians, and bikers are overwhelmingly caused by people driving personal vehicles, not by people jaywalking, or bikers running stop signs, or whatever else.

    • Bobby Mucho says:

      8/10 are actually drivers running lights, taking turns without checking for pedestrians/cyclists.

      Cyclists that run lights or blow through stop signs should definitely be fined. The rest of your complaints are asinine.

  6. Yo Mama says:

    @ Wurple
    Thanks for my daily dose of racism.
    No wonder people hate your kind.
    You make it so easy.

  7. Mai says:

    This is fantastic. Really hope they start ticketing cars in the bike lane near Four Barrel. (Because one can park on the “median” so why park in the bike lane and make it hairy for cyclists?)

  8. MrEricSir says:

    If SFPD continues enforcing car traffic laws, the city’s budget woes would disappear overnight. It’s a win/win, at least for people who can be bothered to follow the law.

  9. TinyTim says:

    They also need to ticket where there are bike lanes along BART station entrances, such as 2nd St. side of Montgomery Station. Harrowing sharrows often taken up by car services awaiting a fare. A cyclist pulling to the left may get blidsided by a bus hurtling down Market.