Every day, between 3% and 4% of San Francisco adults already use bicycles for regular transportation — that's about 25,000 people who enjoy reliable, safe, and healthy transportation. These numbers don't include children, commuters, and visitors from out of town. However, most bicycles are not used for everyday transportation because their owners consider it unsafe or impractical. Safer streets will permit thousands more people to choose biking, and help strengthen the growing movement for a sustainable transportation policy in San Francisco that permits growth without sacrificing safety or livability.

Protecting public safety is the role of the police - yet as evidenced in "Data Show Police Bias Against Bicyclists on SF Streets," (SF Indymedia 4-24-2001), there is a serious department problem when it come to protecting cyclists victimized on the streets.

Even individual officers routinely display their indifference to nonmotorized road users: " Pedestrians and bicyclists in this city cannot take it for granted that when the light is green all the traffic has stopped," said SFPD Sergeant James Bosch in September 1996, following the death of cyclist Gary Knight. As reported in the SF Examiner, the truck driver, who admitted to police that he had run the red light, had not been arrested, said Bosch. Ironically, when asked about the death of Chris Robertson 4 years later, Sgt. Bosch quipped: ``Do you mean the case where the bicyclist swerved in front of the truck and got run over?'' It's important to note that Bosch was not a witness in Robertson's death, and that this "Blame the Victim" attitude is prevalent among SFPD officers.

The SFPD can take a number of steps to expand SFPD Officer training on bicycling issues: department bulletins, roll call training videos, and training of police dispatchers would be a good start. Several issues need to be covered, for example:
- Requirements for responding to bike vs. auto collisions
- Bicyclists' basic rights to the road, according to the California Vehicle Code
- The high incidence of doorings in SF, and the resulting need for cyclists to ride outside of the dangerous "door zone."

Better statistics are needed as well, so police resources can be allocated appropriately. The SFPD should track all bicycle incidents reported versus incidents actually cited. Dispatchers should be required and equipped to track all calls of bicycle and motor vehicle collisions. After six months to one year, this number should be compared to the number of actual incident reports involving such cases.

The Board of Supervisors should hold a public hearing to review SFPD's compliance with previous Board requests. A Board Resolution, passed in 1999, includes a directive for the SFPD to develop a bicycle component of its training program, and to recognize and treat deliberate physical harassment of bicyclists by motor vehicles as assault with a deadly weapon. The SFPD has since ignored requests to report back to the Board of Supervisors on its progress on these issues.

The SFPD should reform its policy on reporting bicycle collisions. It is not appropriate to handle bicycle vs. auto collisions the same as auto vs. auto collisions. Because many bicyclists do not have auto insurance, they cannot rely on this method of handling costs of injury treatment or damages to the bicycles. An incident report should be required in any bicycle collision resulting in any injury or any property damage.

The City should support the continuation of the Bicyclists Rights Hotline. Given the need for outside tracking of police treatment of bicycle cases, the Hotline should be continued with city support, until the problem has been solved. On Dec. 1, 2000, the mayor's office announced its ``Share the Road'' public education campaign to help raise driver awareness of bicyclist rights through signs and advertising. Under the program, the Department of Parking and Traffic will spend $230,000 to raise public awareness of bicycle safety issues. After almost 5 months, the campaign remains where it began: at a standstill.

To find out more about efforts to improve safety on San Francisco's streets, visit the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's (SFBC's) web site at http://www.sfbike.org/, or call (415) 431-BIKE. The SFBC is a 2,900-member nonprofit group working to transform San Francisco's streets and neighborhoods into safer and more livable places by promoting the bicycle for everyday transportation.