The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is projected to issue more traffic citations by the end of this year, but it still has a long way to go to catch up to the number of citations issued in previous years.
Last Thursday, city supervisors held their fourth hearing at the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee with the San Francisco Police Department and San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency on traffic enforcement in the city, focusing on how the police department can improve writing citations to drivers who violate traffic laws.
SFPD Commander Luke Martin, who oversees the traffic division, told supervisors that the department is projected to outdo last year’s total number of citations written by officers. In 2024, Martin presented data that showed the total number of traffic citations written was 14,448. As of the end of August of this year, the total number of citations written is 12,839. For more context, in 2023, a total of 5,080 traffic citations were issued.
President Rafael Mandelman, who has called for these hearings, said the latest figures are better, but still not where he would like them to be. He said enforcement is still about 80 percent below 2014 levels.
“We’re still, I think, not where I want us to be, where the Board of Supervisors wants us to be, where I think the police department probably wants us to be, and figuring out how to get there is part of what I’m hoping to do in this series of hearings.”
The police department has had a staffing shortage of approximately 500 officers. The department’s traffic company division (officers assigned to motorcycles to provide traffic safety) has 18 officers, Martin said. Mandelman noted that the traffic company had seen better days at its height with 100 officers, adding that the current number of 18 was “alarming.”
Martin said that a recent police academy class that graduated will assign four officers to the traffic division.
“It’s not much, but considering the rest of the needs of the department, the officers from that academy are basically going to be spread around to different areas that have needs as well,” he said.
Martin added that if the department had the approximately 500 officers needed, the traffic company should have at least 80 officers.
New technology is also playing a role in issuing traffic citations, including for speeding violations. In August, the city began issuing citations for exceeding the speed limit by 11 miles or more at 33 locations.
Shannon Hake, the SFMTA’s project manager for the automated speed enforcement program, said the agency is seeing drivers slowing down and behavioral change.
Mandelman questioned if the city could do more with the cameras based on the current results from the SFMTA.
“I wish we could,” Hake said. “I think we’re going to need to get other California cities to have their programs up and running, and for them to see similar results as well.”
Five other cities were allowed to join the automated speed enforcement camera program, including Oakland, San Jose, Long Beach, and Glendale. San Francisco was the first city to implement the program.