SAFE and an emergent P.O.Dist

In work world, I have recently been involved with the Sidewalks Are For Everyone Campaign. It is unnerving to see myself on posters, in the voter’s guide, etc. flashbacks to my Easter Seals days. But I do feel strongly about the campaign’s objective: raising public awareness about what happens when one parks one’s vehicle across sidewalks, curb cuts and bus stops. What happens? One gets to the bank five minutes quicker while an elderly lady with low vision gets hit by the 49 because she had to wait in the street for it and a person in a wheelchair has to seek another route and is late for an important job interview which makes him seem less than capable. I should say that now that I am associated with this issue ina prfessional way, i am sad to have to discard my Accion Mutatnte attack bumper sticker plan.

If you would like to read more, check out the LH blog. And this recent comment on a SF Streetsblog post that was written after the SAFE press conference. The post details SFPD’s comment about how they are “not inclined” to give citations to sidewalk-hoggers. I love this lady’s comment and I am trying to figure out how to write to her and ask her to blog about P.O.D.s

Fran Taylor (from Streetsblog)

I'm not surprised that the SFPD "is not inclined to enforce sidewalk parking." At a pedestrian safety meeting in the Mission in 2003, the police presenter, a man whose job included talking about street safety to schoolchildren, stood up and stoutly proclaimed, "The number one cause of pedestrian fatalities in San Francisco is pedestrian fault!" He handed around a table with statistics on such fatalities, and sure enough, number one cause was "pedestrian fault." But the next several categories -- red light running, speeding, failure to yield, etc. -- were all "driver fault," and they added up to twice the total for pedestrian fault. They were each listed separately, however, and thus fell below the pedestrian fault totals, which were all lumped together.

So this cop, who couldn't add, was spreading misinformation around to schools, blaming the victims, and doing nothing to solve the problem. Sergeant Quon's comment shows that the SFPD still regards pedestrians as tall, wingless pigeons expected to jump out of the way of the city's true citizens: cars.

January 20, 2009 at 12:34 pmLink# 3