SF Civil Grand Jury finds part of 'Vision Zero' failure due to lack police traffic enforcement

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Eight pedestrians have been killed on San Francisco streets this year. The goal was to have zero by 2024.

Despite all the protections and interventions the city has put in place to keep people safe, a Civil Grand Jury report found the main culprit is the lack of enforcement by police.

Last year, ABC7 news reported that “No Turn on Red” signs were going up in the downtown area. This week, we went looking for them and found many of them, shiny and very visible. Except that the streets didn’t really seem much safer, especially when some drivers just ignore the sign.

Here’s what we saw: an impatient driver who turned right on red with only eight seconds left on the crossing signal. By the way, a driver has to wait only 30 seconds for that light to change. We also saw a delivery motor bike not even pretending to stop before making that right-hand turn on red.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has spent millions of dollars trying to protect both bicyclists and pedestrians.

SFMTA delays vote on banning right turns at red lights anywhere in SF

More than 10 years ago, the city’s Vision Zero plan had a goal: to eliminate traffic deaths by 2024. Yet 2024 marked the deadliest year since 2007.

So when you see a U.S. Postal truck driver not obeying the rules, it begs the question, “Where are the police officers?”

In March 2024, San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman warned us.

“If there’s no enforcement, you can change all the rules you want to and no one will take them seriously,” he said.

San Francisco’s Tenderloin District has 50 intersections with “No Right Turn on Red” or “No Left Turn on Red” signs. SFMTA told us last year that 92% of drivers were complying with the law.

MORE: SF transportation agency wants to expand ‘No Turn On Red’ restrictions in city

But this week, we saw multiple cars disobeying the law and no one was holding them accountable.

Here’s what SFPD told us: “Keeping people alive and safe is the San Francisco Police Department’s No. 1 priority, and we are using the personnel available to have the maximum impact.”

Let’s go back to that line “the personnel available,” because SFPD continues to blame the lack of traffic enforcement on its ongoing staffing shortage.

“I don’t think it’s an issue of staffing as much as it is an issue of prioritizing,” said Katherine Blumberg who served on a Civil Grand Jury investigating the causes of a failed Vision Zero, which found that “there’s a sense of lawlessness on the city streets, due to the almost complete lack of enforcement in recent years.”

“There’s a lot of reckless driving on the streets, and we’re seeing a complete drop off in enforcement,” Blumberg said.

MORE: Why do we have right-on-red, and is it time to get rid of it?

The report found that the number of traffic citations dropped by 95% in the 10 years since Vision Zero was first adopted in 2014. 2016 saw the first big drop in citations, even though that same year police staffing increased by 6%.

“It was a drop off in citations while police officer staffing was increasing and at the same time collisions were increasing, so this just has not been a priority for the SFPD,” Blumberg said.

SFPD told us that it has increased traffic enforcement in the last year and that’s true. The Civil Grand Jury report acknowledges that in 2024 there were 15,500 citations, the most significant increase since 2020.

ABC7’s data team also found that traffic stops for running a red light or making that right on red, increased from 19 stops in 2023 to 61 in 2024.

In the report, the Civil Grand Jury calls for “a renewed commitment to traffic enforcement from SFPD” and that SFMTA start “building community trust.”