Driving without license OK in SF -- cyclists and pedestrians beware

October 26, 11:48 AMSF Politics ExaminerArthur Bruzzone

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SAN FRANCISCO-CA ---   In 2007, the last reporting period. the California Highway Patrol (CHP) reported  28 pedestrians fatalities, 440 cyclists injured, a total of 52 people killed in traffic accidents in San Francisco.

Now, it's reported today that the city will no longer enforce the law for first time offenders of driving without a license.  Worse, the new police chief endorses the proposal. 

San Francisco Police Chief Gascon is quoted as saying  that the city is "trying to be sensitive to all of the communities we serve..."We recognize that this is a problem within the Hispanic community, where people working here can't get a driver's license because of their immigration status," Gascón said.

The police chief might want to develop some sensitivity to the 3,632 who were injured in traffic accidents in San Francisco or the five deaths and 346 motorcyclists' injuries, reported by the CHP.  Traffic injuries are on the rise.  Sensitivity does not allow the city or police chief to decide how to enforce the law.  The law, driving with a license, is intended to protect against incompetent drivers. 

Driving a 6,000-pound vehicle is not a right.  It requires skill and most important for new arrivals in this country, it requires obeying traffic laws.   --- Which are very different in other countries.  Anyone driving the streets for Rome, Paris or Mexico City (as I have) knows that driving skills require more aggression to survive.  There are less traffic lights and restrictions. There's a reason that 530,000 San Franciscans have driver's licenses and must carry a license while driving. New arrivals especially  need to learn California traffic regulations and laws, including driving with a license at all times.

San Francisco County has no right to decide to suspend or modify existing state law.  The board, mayor and agencies here and in the past have acted unilaterally, refusing to change state and federal laws. They just ignore or modify state and federal law at will.  It's just another example of inherent symbolic gestures enacted by San Francisco  to avoid 'offending' particular community----gestures, seemingly innocent,  that have resulted in documented violence, death and injuries.  

In this case, political correctness in San Francisco is helping to make the streets unsafe, contributing to the  killing and maiming drivers, passengers, cyclists and pedestrians.  And the chief law enforcement officer in San Francisco endorses the leniency.  Don't be surprise to see personal injury attorneys ready to use the new policy to charge city taxpayers millions in court settlements.