Capt. Paul Chignell: Police Beat

District Traffic Enforcement One of the most important tasks San Francisco police officers have is to protect the public from errant drivers, to educate the public about pedestrian and vehicular safety and to work with other agencies to improve the infrastructure associated with traffic.

The three words that we use in traffic are enforcement, education and engineering.

Our police district is the largest in San Francisco, comprising a large area of the southwest portion of the City. In addition, we have major thoroughfares through the district, such as Sloat Boulevard, Junipero Serra, 19th Avenue, Lincoln Way, Sunset Boulevard, Lake Merced, John Muir, Skyline, Brotherhood Way and many others.

Obviously, we engage in a lot of traffic enforcement. In fact, the Taraval Police Station has led the City in issuing moving traffic violations for most of the past two years. Our officers are encouraged to tag red light runners, speeders and drivers who violate the right of way of pedestrians.

We also are committed to conducting education campaigns about traffic safety, particularly speaking to groups of school children and the elderly about how to be aware of traffic dangers and to act accordingly.

Lastly, traffic engineering is an important function of government. In many instances, enforcement is not the only answer.

There are a myriad of ways to enhance vehicular and pedestrian safety, such as signage, stop lights, stop signs, roadway configurations, countdown changes for pedestrians, red light cameras, and many more. We are fortunate to have dedicated elected officials to assist us with legislative changes and leadership on traffic engineering improvements, both on major thoroughfares and on neighborhood streets.

Congresswoman Jackie Speier, State Sen. Leland Yee, Assemblymember Fiona Ma, and San Francisco supervisors Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd, Ross Mirkarimi and John Avalos have all been partners with the Police Department to make needed improvements to enhance traffic safety.

We all see dangerous driving every day in San Francisco. We are constantly striving to make things better for the driving public and pedestrians.

We welcome any suggestions on how we are doing and how we can work better with you to enhance safety.

Capt. Paul Chignell is the commanding officer at the Taraval Police Station.