The streets of San Francisco are about to become a lot less safe

At its December 7 meeting, the San Francisco Police Commission unveiled the latest draft of a policy that would prohibit the police department from enforcing certain traffic laws. Below, we provide a summary of what that policy, in its current state, would do if ultimately adopted, the arguments for and against it, and why we think it’s a step in the wrong direction. 

In broad terms, the policy would ban officers from enforcing a number of Vehicle Code violations, including:

1. Failing to display license plates;

2. Failing to display valid registration tabs;

3. Driving without functioning or illuminated tail lights;

4. Driving without brake lights;

5. Affixing objects to windows or hanging them from the rearview mirror;

6. Failing to signal while turning or changing lanes; and

7. Sleeping in a vehicle.

Moreover, the policy has a “catch-all clause” that would prohibit any stop of a pedestrian or bicyclist for a violation of the Vehicle Code unless there is an immediate danger that the pedestrian or bicyclist will collide with a vehicle, scooter, bicycle, or other device moving exclusively under human propulsion.

The proponents of the policy argue that the covered violations pose no public safety threat because there is no data that shows their enforcement has led to the prevention of traffic accidents; that police should be focusing on more important matters; and that enforcing the covered violations causes harm to black and brown communities because members of those communities are disproportionately stopped by the police. 

The opponents of the policy argue that limiting enforcement in this way does, in fact, pose a public safety threat. For example, at the December 7 meeting, Commissioner Jim Byrne posed to his colleagues a hypothetical wherein a police officer spots a vehicle that matches the description of one reported to be involved in a violent crime. Under the policy, the officer could not pull the vehicle over on the basis of one of the covered violations. Commissioner Max Carter-Oberstone, author of the policy, responded that the officer could still pull the vehicle over to investigate the violent crime, which is true, but misses an important point that belies his lack of familiarity with the practical realities of law enforcement: In some instances, a vehicle description alone does not provide sufficient reasonable suspicion to legally effect a stop, and an officer must rely on another basis – i.e. the Vehicle Code infraction – to continue her investigation lawfully.

The opponents of the policy also noted that there is no evidence to support the claim that the policy will mitigate racial disparities in enforcement. To wit, Commissioner Byrne noted that a similar policy was implemented in Virginia without producing any meaningful reduction in such disparities.

While a formal decision on the policy is still pending, we believe that its current version is untenable and must be significantly amended, if not rejected outright. 

First, the policy essentially makes bicyclists immune to any form of traffic enforcement.  Unsurprisingly, members of the Bicycle Coalition called into the meeting in droves to voice their support.

Second, as noted above, there is no evidence that the policy will do what it claims. In a late entry to this year’s “San Francisco Politician Says the Quiet Part Out Loud” competition, Commissioner Kevin Benedicto, a proponent, argued that even if no racial disparities are mitigated, the policy will still be a success if it results in fewer traffic stops overall (i.e. this is actually a de-policing initiative cloaked as an attempt to combat racism).

Third, there appears to be a lack of engagement with the thorny question of why, or whether, racial disparities in SFPD traffic enforcement exist. The proponents claim that driving behavior cannot explain the data in this study, which shows that black drivers are stopped at higher rates than white drivers (although, notably, Latino and Asian drivers are stopped at lower rates). The study concludes that bias might be a factor because stopped black drivers were warned and let go without a citation more frequently than white drivers were and, when black drivers were searched, contraband was found less frequently. 

We don't find this logic compelling. An equally, if not more, plausible explanation for why black drivers were warned and released at higher rates is that police officers have no idea what the race of a driver is at the time they initiate a stop, then – upon seeing that the driver they have stopped is black – are overcorrecting against the potential for bias with more, not less, lenient enforcement in deciding whether to write a ticket. The study also doesn’t take into account that a significant proportion of vehicle searches are based on a driver’s probation or parole status – searches which are done as a matter of course, not based upon individualized suspicion. 

None of this is to say that enforcement disparities motivated by racial animus don’t exist in some – even many – cities, and there are well-designed studies to support that claim. But the far left in San Francisco has a habit of failing to distinguish between prevailing trends in other parts of the country and those here – e.g., citing national statistics to argue that San Francisco practices mass incarceration, when in fact it incarcerates fewer individuals per capita than almost anywhere on Earth. Unsurprisingly, in a country as diverse as the US, what pertains to law enforcement practices in Maricopa or Miami-Dade counties doesn’t necessarily pertain in the Bay Area.

Finally, a bigger picture concern: There’s been a lot of hand-wringing, much of which is justified, recently about the state of democracy in America. Given that context, it's bizarre that an unelected body of municipal commissioners is even empowered to adopt a policy that would effectively nullify state law. While the policy’s proponents may believe that there is no public safety benefit to comprehensive traffic enforcement, our state’s highest democratic institution plainly disagrees – and has made its view known in the Vehicle Code. That should be the end of the discussion. If San Francisco continues its pattern of picking and choosing which state (and federal) laws it wants to follow on any given day, it will be contributing to a further breakdown of the institutions which bind our nation together.