Commentary: Police Need to Stop Exonerating Drivers in Fatal Crashes

Broke Ass Stuart is reporting that the pedestrian killed by a motorist Friday morning while crossing Geary was a bartender at Zeitgeist. From their post:

The incident occurred on the downhill side of Geary towards downtown, opposite Broderick Street. His jeans lay in the middle of the road, belt still attached, keyring crushed. A tattered shirt lay nearby, and a lone shoe sat sole-up amongst shards of metal debris.

Streetsblog has pointed out multiple times, of course, how Geary, despite the watered down bus and safety improvements that have gone in recently, remains a dangerous street-level freeway. But at this point it seems the city has given up on making things safer, as evidenced by some pretty out-there quotes from SFMTA director Jeffrey Tumlin about a pedestrian death last week in Cole Valley, claiming there’s nothing that can be done to make streets safer near a hospital.

But what I found especially galling about these last two tragedies was the usual cut-and-paste nonsense from the police department. And it’s this familiar phrase, quoted here in the Standard’s coverage of the Geary tragedy:

The driver remained at the scene and is cooperating with investigators. Police say drugs and alcohol do not appear to be factors.

This was literally the phrase used to describe the truck driver who killed the man last week at Stanyan and Parnassus. And it’s the phrase used after every deadly crash as long as the driver doesn’t stumble out of their car trailing a cloud of bong smoke with an open flask of gin in their hand.

Occasionally, I’ll call out the police on their insipid statements, mostly because they don’t blink an eye at also saying:

We are precluded from providing investigative steps and speak to any evidence that pertains to an incident.  

That’s what Officer Robert Rueca wrote in reply to my questions during a seven-email back-and-forth about the crash in Cole Valley. That one involved a truck driver turning and killing a man who was in the crosswalk with the right of way. Rueca’s reply doesn’t make much grammatical sense, but clearly it’s evasive. My question was simple. I wanted to know “whether cell phone records are typically part of the investigation of a fatal crash.”

One of the things that came out of last month’s Vision Zero Cities conference in New York was that we cannot—and should not—depend on law enforcement to get people to drive safely. Instead, install all the concrete and cameras and “leading pedestrian intervals” you can. There will still be edge cases where egregious driving requires the intervention of sworn police officers. Even the Netherlands and other Vision Zero countries have traffic police.

That’s why it’s especially galling that the police in San Francisco and other American cities continue to issue pro-forma statements exonerating drivers, telling the public there wasn’t evidence of drugs or alcohol, and at the same time claiming they don’t comment on investigations.

Which is it?

My takeaway is simple and, well, undeniable: the police don’t give a crap if the drivers were texting, on the phone, or otherwise driving distracted. They simply don’t consider that a crime, even though it is one, along with many other forms of reckless driving that don’t involve alcohol and drugs. The SFPD has no intention of investigating cell-phone records or any other evidence of distracted driving. That’s why they dodge the question.

People are dying every week or two on the streets of San Francisco and one of the leading causes—according to multiple research studies—is distracted driving. And yet the only takeaway for anyone paying attention is that the police have decided, all on their own, that this is not an issue worth their attention (along with a host of other traffic crimes over the years).

Please, officers, at least then show a little respect for the victims. Stop issuing statements that declare that drugs and alcohol weren’t involved. If SFPD policy is not to comment on investigations, then don’t.

The post Commentary: Police Need to Stop Exonerating Drivers in Fatal Crashes appeared first on Streetsblog San Francisco.

source https://sf.streetsblog.org/2024/10/29/commentary-police-need-to-stop-exonerating-drivers-in-fatal-crashes