SFPD won't investigate hit-and-run car-v-bike accident

Two months ago, I blogged about the hit-and-run driver who ran down JWZ and friend on their bicycles in San Francisco. The victims lavishly documented the crime, including getting witness names, a photo of the license plate and so on. They filed a report with the SFPD, and waited. And waited.

After two months, they've been told that the SFPD doesn't intend to investigate the crime. Apparently, driving your car into a cyclist, causing injury, and failing to remain at the scene isn't a serious crime in the SFPD's books. JWZ thinks that this is part of a pattern of the SFPD ignoring motor-vehicle crimes against cyclists and pedestrians.

John called SFPD, went down to the police station in person and filed a report (case 091-062-114), and after several followup phone calls over the next few weeks was told:
"No action has been taken on your case, but you can call the DMV and get the person's plate if you want to file a civil suit."
Apparently prosecuting hit-and-run drivers is beneath the notice of our police department, and the piece of shit driver who almost killed us both gets off scott free.

SFPD hates bicyclists

Previously:

Hit-and-run driver who hit cyclist - Boing Boing

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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n8zilla

maybe “critical mass rides” are different in SF; but here in LA, they generate little sympathy amongst the 4 wheel set. of course i’m aware i need to share the road with bikes… i ride one myself, and i like it when people don’t try and run me down; but i’m not quite sure how blocking intersections, running lights and snarling traffic on purpose is supposed to make anything better…
- tiamat_the_red
  
  Hah, no, Critical Mass rides aren’t different here in SF. I LOATHE them and I have no problem with sharing the road with bicyclists (it was my primary mode of transportation while I was in school). It’s practically a riot on wheels from what I’ve heard. Personally, I think it’s a terrible idea because it turns cyclists into The Enemy, a large, faceless, threatening mass which never helps anyone’s cause.
Anonymous

this is tremendously sad in every level. if i ever get hit and dont live to tell, this is NOT how i wanna be rememebr, by the case that just *mehg* ignored because I was on a bicycle and I was just such much a less citizen.

this beyond enrages me.
Anonymous

SFPD doesn’t prosecute hit and run on cyclists, but does confiscate laptops of DJs. Super lame, and what a shame!
wood29

Is it specifically because this is a car versus a bike, or because nobody was seriously injured ?

Maybe the SFPD (or the DA) have a policy of only investigating road accidents where people were injured or killed ?

I’m not saying that’s okay, I’m just saying it’s a possibility.
mgfarrelly

A few things I’ve found from dealing with cops in regards car/bike altercations

-If there’s not a traumatic injury (broken bones, cracked skull) it’s hard to get taken seriously without a cop seeing the incident. The assumption by many cops being that bruises and welts are just part and parcel of urban cycling. Note the cop in the blog post who says they assume cyclists are at fault.

-Pictures of everything: They got a paramedics report, which is good. Pictures of injuries are vital in any assault. A good friend of mine was able to get a case prosecuted and get an out of court settlement largely because of the photos of her injuries taken right on the scene.

-Don’t assume malice when laziness will do: Hit and run is a stat-bumping crime. It’s a violent crime, it’s a “quality of life” crime and it’s the sort of thing that can hurt a “safe city” image. Cops are trained to talk down or avoid these sorts of cases whenever possible. Especially in “nice” neighborhoods where an increase in violent crime would be noticed. Better to let a case fall by the wayside as “he said/she said” than risk upsetting the apple cart. Sad but true.

-Bike cops: It might be worth the victims time to track down a bike cop. They might lend a more sympathetic ear. I know that here in Chicago they’re much easier to deal with than the cruisers or station cops.
Anonymous

Grrrrrrrrr. I can’t really talk about this. Can only emote right now…
Anonymous

It may not be the police’s fault. Perhaps the prosecutors are the ones ignoring the case. I don’t know if its at the state, county, or city level in CA but I would contact the appropriate prosecutor’s office. I would also contact elected officials. Sooner or later you will run into someone with power who is interested in your problem.
Anonymous

Nothing against bike riders – but I was involved with a hit-and-run (car vs. car) and the police did nothing. The guy blew through a stop sign and t-boned us, witness etc…and his license plate fell off!!!

SF police contacted the owner of the vehicle (who said it had been stolen, just not reported…right) and proceeded to give him OUR information??? Heelllllooo, yeah I want the guy who tboned me and left me for dead to have my phone number and home address.

Any way = long story long….police told us they don’t do hit and runs (unless someone dies???)
Anonymous

What if it were a couple of kids who got hit an injured? Would it be ignored? Would people be bringing in this car vs. bike/hipster insanity?
A car hit people on bikes and took off. A crime was committed. Just because you don’t like the cyclists in your area it does not mean that our laws become null and void.
Anonymous

Don’t blame the police, they did their job. Prosecution is the DA’s responsibility. Also prosecuting this case may not make sense depending on the facts. It may be unlikely that the state will meet its burden of proof and the state can’t try every case, especially with the limited resources they have. The DA has a lot on her plate right now and might be waiting for a really good car-hitting-biker case (one she thinks she can win) before trying the issue.

Sue the driver! The burden of proof you have to meet is lower and the victim will actually get something out of it.
Pasketti

This is news? Cars have always been able to get away with hitting cyclists with no consequences.

Picture: http://media.mysanantonio.com/images/BIKE+MEMORIAL++100609+001.jpg

The girl is Kylie Bruehler, age 7. It was taken at a memorial service for her parents who were killed while riding their tandem bike on a highway shoulder. A truck driver wasn’t paying attention, veered off the road, and killed them. And now she’s an orphan. No charges were filed. It was “just an accident”.

More info: http://current.com/items/91188164_bicyclists-on-the-road-treated-no-better-than-deer.htm

And more: http://bicycling.com/blogs/roadrights/2009/11/18/traffic-injustice/
jimh

When I was hit by a car while riding my bicycle, (car turned left at a light, didn’t see me in the oncoming lane, lotsa witnesses) the responding SFPD officers repeatedly attempted to get me to admit that I had been riding on the sidewalk, not in the street. They actively tried to create a report where I was at fault when the driver of the car, by all accounts including her own, was in the wrong.

This aggressive questioning occurred while I was in the ambulance, on a back board, in shock, with a broken shoulder blade and severe muscle trauma.
pyster

Thinking you should not only file a civil suit against the driver, but the police department for failing to to prosecute.

Just like a pig… There to tazer you for spitting on the sidewalk, never there to protect.
Anonymous

@#42
I was also hit in SF a few months ago, and also had SFPD try to get me to admit fault. They asked very misleading questions as I laid in the ER suffering from a concussion, half-conscious.

To all bikers out there – the bottom line is you simply cannot trust SFPD to look out for you.
Tobi319

I have contacted SFPD and have gotten all my friends who are cyclists to contact them as well. Not sure if it will help, but it will make our voices heard at the very least!
Anonymous

Take this info to the ADA. The police cant pick and choose which laws to enforce randomly. More leg work, but you should get results. No harm dropping this to all levels of media as well.
Anonymous

I think the mistake you’re making is in thinking that the cops are there to protect you. They’re not. Their job is to protect society, not individuals. Cf. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html
elNico

Too funny, this whole cyclist/hipster vs car driver dynamic is the same here in Australia. When I go home to Germany, cycling doesn’t seem to be all that hip or sporty for that matter, it’s just something that people of all walks of life do. It’s the same in the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries.

Very few “single gear plus retro helmet” sightings as well, it’s just not that much of a statement, really.

Cue to Oz or SF/US and there seems to be an epic war going on…
moebrook

Monday afternoon, while walking home from jury duty, a driver on a handheld phone made an illegal turn on red two feet in front of me while I was in the crosswalk, that I think is three violations in this city. I of course yelled at the guy who stopped and asked what my problem was, I informed him of his crappy driving he then flashed his badge at me. It is hard to have faith in the system sometimes.
cinemajay

I would fight it too. Police are negligent if they have information to prosecute a crime like reckless driving and striking someone with a vehicle and do nothing about it. Most cases don’t gave this much to go on!
Comedian

From the department of cute timing coincidences, check out today’s headline from SF Weekly:

“The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S.”

http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-city-in-the-u-s/

It’s time to face facts: San Francisco is spectacularly mismanaged and arguably the worst-run big city in America. This year’s city budget is an astonishing $6.6 billion â€” more than twice the budget for the entire state of Idaho â€” for roughly 800,000 residents. Yet despite that stratospheric amount, San Francisco can’t point to progress on many of the social issues it spends liberally to tackle â€” and no one is made to answer when the city comes up short.
Anonymous

setup a donation on paypal and post the information.
Also, btw, here is the information for the hit and run dept. in san francisco: http://sf-police.org/index.aspx?page=54

Hit and Run Section
850 Bryant St, Rm. 415
San Francisco, CA 94013
Office hours 0600-1800
Monday through Friday

Everyone should feel free to call and have a few words with them.
nemofazer

I was t-boned on my bicycle on my way home from work in Vancouver four years ago. I had my left leg broken in three places and lost a lot of cartilage. Now I walk with a limp and have some pain everyday which is set to get worse over time.

I was hit by a car that had stopped at its stop sign but didn’t see me going through the junction and put their foot down as I passed through (my right of way, not a four-way).

The cops only wanted to confirm the driver had stopped before proceeding. Once they did they seemed ok with it and never prosecuted. I was so hopped up on morphine in the days that followed (I needed surgery) that I let it pass. I really regret that now.
Antinous / Moderator

You can’t just start letting hit and run drivers off the hook. There’s a reason that it’s a criminal rather than civil offense. People die.
agreenster

Go vigilante. You have his license plate, you have his address, you know what he looks like. If the law wont protect you, YOU have to protect you.

Aaah, Im just kidding.

Sorta.
Anonymous

IT has noting to do with what hte police will investigate. It is that there is absolutely no way to convict these people. So no…they AREN’T going to aste resoruces when all they have is a cyclists word and a cell phone picture of a license plate. There is no evidence (nor any way to get evidence) that a crime was committed.
skeptacally

here in canada, we had a full-blown media storm when ontario’s former attorney general (a government “high-up” and head of our criminal justice system) hit and ran a bike courier. the ex-politician hit the cyclist. the courier responded by gripping on to the car and (perhaps) the politician as well. the altercation ended with the driver swerving and bouncing the courier off of a mailbox and a tree, killing him.

i blogged about the situation. i pointed out that there would be countless more incidents and altercations unless the media attention of the event caused for changes in attitudes and legislation.

a few highlights:

“Serious cyclists are being persecuted. As a demographic, we are oppressed. We are treated unfairly.

“And there are not a whole lot of people in spheres of influence and power who are coming to our aid.”

“In a collision between a bike and a car, the bike never wins. The cyclist never wins. In fact, there is an extremely good chance that the cyclist will not only lose, but will be injured or killed in this collision. The cyclist will not only lose, but he will lose his life as well.”

“Until there is serious attention being paid to the safety of cyclists â€” until law enforcement officers, public servants, elected officials, educators, and regular drivers start enacting some form of change on city streets â€” there will continue to be confrontations like the one that happened between Darcy Allan Sheppard and Michael Bryant.

“Cyclists will continue to fight their own battles. And tragedies will continue to occur.

“Blood will continue to spill, and ink will continue to be wasted.”

for those interested in the battle between the car and the bike: http://smallprint.ca/2009/09/01/of-ink-and-blood-thoughts-on-bike-wars/
Anonymous

The San Francisco police are the most inept bunch of “big city” (hardly) cops I’ve ever had to misfortune to live under the authority of. It’s amazing, the sort of infantile tactics they’ll resort to ,when called to the scene of a crime, to avoid having to fill out a report or take statements… That’s paperwork, you know! Bloody Filth. Not once, in the 7 years I’ve lived in this city, have I ever felt that the police were on the case or even able to do their jobs effectively. At least they’re not particularly brutal (purely relative, I know), which would really be the icing on the fecal cake of living under such a sad excuse for law enforcement.
Anonymous

It’s the same thing in Atlanta. I was hit by a pickup truck while riding my bicycle — despite giving a full description of the vehicle, license plate, and eye-witness accounts, the APD did nothing. I called repeatedly to ask about the case, but after 6-7 months I was told “That case has been closed”. It took a couple more months of calls before they finally gave me the driver’s info so I could pursue a civil suit.
Xenu

Hey, at least they finally caught the Muni Stabber!
Anonymous

Remember this when the city council is discussing making budget cuts. If the police department doesn’t respond to serious safety issues, then what is their mission?
Anonymous

The Bay Area seams to have some of the most progressive residents, but some of the worst police in the country.

I wonder if it’s just that the people do a better job of documenting police abuse and it’s actually at the same level as everywhere else? Or if the authorities crack down on a population that they see as too radical? or something else?

I hear about Bay cops abusing the homeless, not investigating bike accidents, killing innocent people (thinking of the recent Oscar Grant slaying with a pattern of violence going back to at least the 60s).

My father was permanently injured in a bike accident with a truck. Violent drivers must be stoped, and I don’t have much faith in the police doing it. We need direct action. More critical mass rides. Documentation of offending drivers (a centralized public database?). etc. . .
- octopod
  
  >The Bay Area seams to have some of the most progressive residents, but some of the worst police in the country.
  
  lol. that’s so not true, in general the sfpd seem to be the most chill cops I’ve ever seen.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    that’s so not true, in general the sfpd seem to be the most chill cops I’ve ever seen.
    
    Agreed. I dealt with SFPD on about a dozen occasions in various capacities and they were generally very helpful. Police don’t decide whom to prosecute, the DA does. Complain to the Supervisor for your district. That’s your elected representative, who might maybe be able to do something.
strangefriend

Reminds me of a panel from the underground comic PUDGE GIRL BLIMP, where she is going door-to-door canvassing votes for a candidate:
Shopkeeper: “FUCK THIS CITY! A TRAFFIC COP RAN OVER MY SON!”
Anonymous

Fight it! No WAY! DMV civil suit and appeal!
This paradigm HAS TO shift.
wrybread

Two thoughts:

1) you should consider going to the San Francisco Office of Citizen’s Complaint, its at 25 Van Ness, and in theory they investigate every single complaint against police officers in SF. I’ve made a complaint in the past and at a minimum its immensely satisfying. If you bring info about specific officers who ignored you, they’ll have to sign your complaint.

2) I once tried to get the name of someone from their license plate, and there’s a ton of websites proclaiming the ability to do it. I gave two of them my $25 membership fee and in both cases was promptly ripped off, but maybe someone out there knows of a way to translate that plate to a name? And then we can think of some revenge that at least communicates to them that they should watch out for bikes in the future? Fliers on telephone poles in his neighborhood, that sort of thing?
zyodei

The way our criminal justice system is set up is that we have given an enforced monopoly on police services to a select group of people. There are no inherently robust methods for making them response to the people they are supposed to serve or removing them if they go bad.

There is no effective means in the reality of democratic governance to remove a corrupt, abusive, or ineffective bureaucracy.

So, we have police departments all over the country becoming more and more abusive, interested first and foremost in maintaining their pay check, because what incentives do they have to act otherwise?

We might want to be idealistic, but here’s the truth: people respond, sobconsciously, to incentives. Good intentions only carry people so far.

Why should they care about some guy on a bike? Do you think he pays much in taxes? Does he have much political pull? What incentive to the police have to actually do their job and take care of this issue?
sum d00d

I highly recommend that those involved should speak to an attorney, and possibly reach out to the Chronicle. There’s no reason a documented accident in which people were hurt should not be investigated.
Claude

Hi: I am a pro bicycle attorney here in SF and I see anti-bicycle police reports on most of my cases. Remember that the police opinion on fault in the report is not actually evidence in a civil case. The police report almost never tells the whole story. You need a pro biking attorney to tell your side of the story. The DA in San Francisco makes political and practical choices as to where they wish to invest their resources. The police just do the investigation and follow orders. If a bicyclist wants accountability, they need to make a civil claim. I help cyclists every day, usually with just free advice, but often by making the bad motorists financially accountable. Please feel free to give your friends my direct number 415-951-6235 if they would like to learn their options now that the police have let them down. I dont usually troll for cases, but I do feel strongly that cyclists need to be heard and that making bad drivers accountable creates a safer cycling environment. If you would like to see my website go to ccwlawyers.com or ccwbikelawyer.com or to my blog at ccwbikelawyerblog.com, please feel free. I wish you and your fellow cyclists a better healthier year this New Year, Claude Wyle
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Normally I wouldn’t allow such a commercial comment, but it’s so topical, I’m making an exception. Just don’t complain if you get 10,000 e-mails from our readers.
  - Anonymous
    
    Thanks for letting me contribute. I am not trying to troll for cases. I just encounter this exact factual scenario so many times per year. For some reason, the SFPD is always trying to get cyclists to admit fault. I fight for injured cyclists every day. I just had to settle a case because my client, who had a concussion and was in an ambulance, supposedly told the reporting officer that he had run the stop sign and hit the side of a bus. When we reconstructed the accident, we saw this was not possible. Still, by making the injured cyclist give a statement at the scene, the officer ruined my client’s chance to make the bus driver fully accountable. My advice is to wait to give the police a statement, unless you are absolutely clear headed, and never ever ever let the officer manipulate you into admitting fault.
SKR

Not serious??? Try driving a car AT a police officer and they will hit you with assault with a deadly weapon. Sounds serious to me.
Anonymous

People underestimate the justice and vindication that can come from public humiliation. If the DMV is willing to give you the identity of the assailant for a civil suit, get their picture, photocopy it with your grievance in 20 words or less and poster-bomb his neighborhood.
codeman38

@solitaire: Thanks for getting to that comment before me. If, as coaxial says, “everyone has a car” in America, I’d sure like to know where mine is hiding, much less where the license I never applied for has materialized.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  If, as coaxial says, “everyone has a car” in America, I’d sure like to know where mine is hiding
  
  Check the garage at stately Wayne Manor.
flowerofhighrank

This is a class issue. When the majority of urban cyclists are people just trying to get to work and can’t afford a car or have time/route issues with the bus or train. Frame it as an attack on the poorest, most vulnerable members of our society and tell the cops that.
- coaxial
  
  This is a class issue. When the majority of urban cyclists are people just trying to get to work and can’t afford a car or have time/route issues with the bus or train. Frame it as an attack on the poorest, most vulnerable members of our society and tell the cops that.
  
  This is SF and America. Everyone has a car, and the bicyclists are a bunch of hipsters. This is JWZ and a friend of his. JWZ has plenty of cash, and I don’t think he hangs out with a bunch of poor people that can’t afford a car.
  
  Are you honestly suggesting that JWZ lie to make the story better?
  - solitaire
    
    This is ‘merica.
    
    Daaaaamn right.
    
    Everyone has a car
    
    No, and not everyone needs a car.
    
    …and the bicyclists are a bunch of hipsters.
    
    This is also untrue. Hipsters on candy colored fixed gears (and neon lycra clad roadies for that matter) might be the loudest cyclists on the road but there are also a lot of people using their bikes to get places and do things because that’s what bikes are for. This is perfectly normal behavior. Drivers shouldn’t be able to get a free pass on running into a someone on a bike simply by leaving the scene of the crime. It is not open season on cyclists (not even the hipsters).
    
    JWZ has plenty of cash
    
    This does not make him invulnerable.
  - octopod
    
    interesting, framing this is part of the ongoing war on hipsterism and trust fundermentalists, I’m inclined to say – go sfpd!
Jim Rizzo

I would contact a few different people. The first thing I would have done was to check for witnesses. If they existed, your case is pretty hard to ignore. Contact them and get written statements with contact information. Contact the supervisors for the police district in which it occurred. File a complaint with Internal Affairs. Contact your city councilman.

If none of that gets you anywhere, contact the chief of police. And if that gets you nowhere, sue the city.
Anonymous

San Francisco?

You need to see a man named ADRIAN MONK.
rageahol

@sum d00d #6:

HAHAHAHAH. the fucking CHRONICLE? are you fucking serious? the paper that every summer has front page articles about OMG SCOFFLAW CYCLISTS WHO DONT STOP AT RED LIGHTS?

My suggestion is:
1) sue
2) talk to the city’s bicycle advisory committee. in the past, when the head of police’s parking/traffic made a bullshit comment about cyclists as a class not being law-abiding or some such nonsense, they had the pull to get him down there and apologize.
3) talk to the sfbc, they might have additional legal resources

most importantly, GET FUCKING INVOLVED. anyone who’s been unfortunate enough to get into an altercation in SF while riding a bike knows how, generally (and there are exceptions), cops are really fucking hostile to cyclists, to the point of not charging drivers when people get killed on bikes. they prefer instead to blame the victim. there’s probably less paperwork.
Anonymous

Please. This isn’t biker prejudice. SFPD is just lazy in general.

This is the department that claims Hugues La Plaza stabbed himself many times in the chest and then washed the knife and put it away in a drawer, while leaving no trail of blood, so they don’t have to waste valuable time investigating a murder.
Daedalus

Step 1: Do that civil suit. They’ve got the car-driver dead-to-rights. Enforcement won’t enforce, become the enforcer.

Step 2: Talk to some Lawninjae about what you can bring against the SFPD themselves for being butthumbs.

Step 3: Become a media whore, and make sure every local news station and interwebs blogotube knows about this. Put pressure on the cops.

Super-seeeecret Step 4: Get this info to 4Chan and see what happens.

And don’t ever: Sit on your thumbs and cry about it. Be pro-active.
Ito Kagehisa

Use the license plate to find the guy, ask him NICELY to take responsibility for his actions, DO NOT THREATEN. Right now, he may be sitting at home feeling miserably guilty and wishing he could find those guys he wronged and make restitution. Bring the medical and bike repair bills in case he gladly pays up, it happens more than you think.

If he refuses, say “I’m sorry you can’t do the right thing” and leave quietly. Then call up seven friends, make a plan, and solve the problem. For example (use your own plan, here’s mine):

1 friend to help set up the tent on the perp’s front lawn. This needs to be done very quickly, so you can get in the tent and lie down before anyone can stop you. The idea is that you will have to be physically removed, and you will peaceably resist removal. Get the tent from goodwill for a couple bucks. If you have access to dogscrews and handcuffs you can anchor yourself very effectively to the lawn through the floor of the tent.

2 friends to stand on the sidewalk with signs and leaflets explaining what’s going on. They can also film the tent being set up, then pass the camera to friend #1 who will continue to video everything that happens.

2 friends (1 male, 1 female) to call every news organization in the city to tell them about the cops who are beating up a homeless person for camping on somebody’s lawn RIGHT NOW at such and such address. It looks like they might kill the guy, come quick!

2 friends to knock on every door in a three-block radius and tell the homeowners that their neighbor is a hit-and-run driver who can’t be trusted not to run over their children. Leaflets to be left in mailboxes of anyone who doesn’t answer the door.

If you do it right, you can completely wreck his relationship with his community, and isn’t that a highly appropriate response to his antisocial behaviour? Everyone around him should know he is not to be trusted and must be watched at all times!

The point is, you don’t need cops to solve your problems for you. Spend some time and money to make your community a better place by refusing to tolerate this sort of behavior. Take responsibility for your life instead of crying for mommy to come fix it.
narrowstreetsLA

Damn. That’s depressing because it reveals how the infrastructure actively encourages irresponsible behavior. I mean, Harrison St. is seven (7!) lanes wide–a totally dehumanized freeway-like environment built for mad speed and easy escape. You can bet that if this had happened on a smaller, slower street populated by ped and bike commuters, this driver asshole wouldn’t have been able to feel so invulnerable.
- xaxa
  
  Wow… I’ve just looked on StreetView (after not believing you could have a 7-lane street in the middle of a city).
  
  Looks like there’s plenty of room for bike lanes, a tram line and a wider sidewalk, then it might actually be a nice place to be.
Mitch

You can get his name from the DMV? I could think of all kinds of ways to embarrass him if the law suit doesn’t work out.
Daemon

I’d be filing two civil suits: One against the guy in the car, the other against the police for not doing their damned job.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com Anonymous

Many SF cops are pretty tolerant and cool, although there are plenty of bike-hating d-bags in the ranks.

I was once pulled over in the pouring rain in the Mission for only slowing down through a series 4way stop sign intersections in a quiet area with no traffic, and forced to sit there while the cop ran a bs check on my ID.

He then proceeded to tell me if I was hit by a car he surmized I’d complain about it being the drivers fault, as if cars had a right to hit bikes. I wanted to explain to him that I had better visibility approaching an intersection at full speed on a bike than he had sitting five feet behind his bumper and surrounded by glass and car, even while he pulled up to a full stop. But he was clearly too stupid to bother with.

As for accident reports, I have been assaulted by drivers throwing large objects at my motorcycle, and only received condescending attitude when I tried to file a report with pics I had taken. The deal is that cops don’t want to bother with crimes that don’t involve serious injury because its a huge bunch of work and the cases wont be prosecuted by the DA anyway.

Unless somebody has been significantly injured (as in broken bones), what are you expecting to accomplish? An official reprimand? I understand the outrage, as I have been hit multiple times, but nobody cares about you unless you have serious injuries.

So take the driver to small claims court yourself and bring documentation for servicing your injuries. Since pain and suffering are based on medical bills, and since you probably won’t have real bills unless you’ve broken something, I recommend that bikers ALWAYS call an ambulance. That usually forces the cops to show up and if nothing else results in $1500 in bills, which will give you at least as much in pain and suffering. Break a bone and you get roughly 3x as much as your bills.

I was told by an attorney that settlements are on the wane in SF since Asians have moved in, because their culture is all about taking care of yourself. SF is becoming increasingly right wing and conservative because of Asian migration. Which sucks for everybody, including Asians.
Anonymous

It appears that the SFPD response can be accurately summarized by the 3rd and 4th characters of the offending license plate…
Beelzebuddy

What the hell do you expect the cops to do? No one was killed, no one would be put in jail, you’ve gathered more than enough evidence yourselves, and the civil court is right there. Sue them yourself, don’t just whine to big brother.

And SFPD are so remarkably chill because they’re paid enough to be discriminatory. If you’re a bully or a dick (a model officer for the rest of the country), you aren’t hired there. Personally, I’d much rather have cops who occasionally (even often) choose not to go after crimes than the kind who break out the tasers first time you look ‘em in the eyes.
Anonymous

maybe the police aren’t persuing the issue because the driver of the car is someone they know or work with. (Sorry, I’m at work so didn’t have time to read all the comments if someone already said this)
I live in Minneapolis but that is exactly what happened to me when a drunk woman punched my 8 year old brother at a restaurant. They didn’t persue any action and even threatened my parents that they could take my brother away because I, an 18 year old at the time, had him out eating dinner at 9pm. This was all because the woman was dating a friend of the police officers on duty.

They protect their own. Just saying.
Baldhead

Hit and run is one of the conditions where I think the only punishment should be permanent loss of a drivers licence. Seriously, it’s a case where you obviously care more about avoiding punishment than whether or not you just killed someone. Such people should never be allowed behind the wheel of a car again.
- dculberson
  
  I agree with this 100%. Perfect solution to a minor hit and run – revoke their driver’s license permanently.
  
  A major hit and run with serious injury should involve some jail time as well.
Anonymous

“The police cant pick and choose which laws to enforce randomly.”

Yeah they can.