All right, camera right shows a light-colored Chevy properly waiting at the red arrow light to turn from westbound Fell onto southbound Masonic. The confused driver is in the blue two-door Honda – she wants to make the same turn to get from NoPA to SoPA but she’s in the wrong lane.
Click to expand
Of course back in the day, the Honda driver would have been driving properly but things changed at this intersection about a half-decade back. Check it. Anywho, she sat there waiting to turn left even though she had a green to proceed straight on Fell Street.
That pissed off the driver of the car behind her, so then its driver is all “hoooooooooonk!” You know, at the Blue Honda Chick.
She doesn’t budge ’cause she knows she wants to turn left, you know, from the wrong lane.
Oh, here she goes, around the Chevy:
Now all that honking attracted the attention of the Park Station police, who also made an illegal left from the wrong lane in order to follow the blue Honda driver onto southbound Masonic. Here they are near Oak:
The moral of this story is that drivers will never get used to this unique intersection set-up. The reason being is that the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition overruled the traffic engineers who originally had cars on Fell turning left at the beginning of the green light phase for Fell Street. But you see, that had car drivers “going first.”
Oh well.
On It Goes…
And oh, what you’re supposed to do when you mistake driving is to just go with it, go with the flow. You know, respond to stimuli. So like if you’re in the westbound lane and you have a green to go straight then you should go straight for a while EVEN THOUGH THAT”S NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO RIGHT NOW. Obliviously, you can’t just make up your own traffic rules…
I didn’t take these photos, but I’ll tell you, I’ve seen a lot of corruption regarding free parking for SFGov employees in the SoMA area, so I believe them.
Here’s a photo essay with captions from Jim, who went on a walkabout yesterday.
Take a look:
“There are the People who pay up front to park in a lot, $25-$70. There are the people who feed meters but many of those wind up paying $72 to the City long after the last pitch. And there are those who play the system and possibly cheat and pay nothing for parking in a “red zone” with the help from “winking and nodding” SFMTA Parking Control Officers.
All these photos were taken within a 50 foot circle near 2nd & Townsend at 2:15 P.M. on Sunday April 7, 2013 during the Giants/St. Louis Baseball game.
1) Number 1 shows what the average slug must pay for parking for the Giant’s game at 2 in the afternoon, i.e. $70.
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2) Number 2 shows a Handicapped placard vehicle getting free Giants game parking in the “red zone” of the SFFD at Second & Townsend. Handicapped placard holders may not park in “red zones.”
3) What appears to be several private vehicles of S.F. firefighters parked in the “red zone” claiming to be working by their Official Papers on the Dash. Is it mere code for “don’t ticket a fellow City employee?”
4) Several motorcycles getting ticketed (TC27, 219) for expired meters by the PCO who just drove by the “red zones” without seeing cause to stop.
5) Photo of SFFD Headquarters at 9:30 A.M., Sunday April 7, 2013 in case you think a lot of people work there on a Sunday.
This is the new normal, with the SFPD routinely handing out tickets to bicycling hipsters on Market at or near the Powell Street turnaround crosswalk.
Like this, yesterday, when MACAFRAMA and fedora LEGO bag here got cold busted for, one presumes, running a red light and/or listening to tunes using both the left and right earbuds:
Hey, SFMTA! Is this your new set of wheels? Oh it is? Well then, what are those attachment things on the roof detecting? Are they detecting a whole bunch of license plates? Well, good for you, SFMTA, good for you.
On McAllister Street during last night’s evening drive:
Anyway, last I saw, this white Chevrolet Uplander minivan was headed into the Fillmore to catch violators.
Hurray!
“Freaking trash! I wonder how much they owe? Most of them are on the run, not even using their social security numbers. If there was only a way to make them pay…”
O.K., all the deets. I hope our meter maids have all the features shown here:
License Plate Reader
SkyCop® – Mobile License Plate Recognition & Video Surveillance System Pan & Tilt LPR Unit with Thermal Imaging Camera and High Resolution Day / Night CameraHideaway Touchscreen Radio System
The SkyCop ® Mobile License Plate Recognition & Video Surveillance System (MLPRV) is a complete License PlateRecognition System packaged in a platform to provide mobile, on the fly, license plate reading, video surveillance and analysis. The most advanced of its kind, the MLPRV system incorporates all of today’s advanced technologies to provide on board storage, and remote access for database updates, data offload, and video records retrieval. This technology allows officers to instantly check license plate information as they drive through their patrol areas. Information such as:
Improper Registration
People driving on revoked licenses
Stolen plates and/or stolen vehicles
stolen renewal decals
Outstanding Warrants
Actual vehicle registration info
Sex Offenders
Known Gangsters
All of this information is provided instantly to the officer while they operate their vehicle, without any user action.
Designed for use in Law Enforcement type vehicles the MLPRV system can also be used withSkyCop® Trailer units and other types of vehicles to increase access protection on a temporary basis for special events. All MLPRV systems provide advanced user friendly features such as the dash mount Touch Screen Control / View Panel with “quick touch” keys for preset positioning of the License Plate Reader and Video Cameras.
Complete with full Pan and Tilt capabilities users can position the License Plate Reader Module in any position desired for precision read areas. Five (5) preset positions are available for frequent positioning. In addition to control functions the dash mounted Touch Screen provides real-time read display and live video display information to the user. “Hot List(s)” information can be entered or imported into the on board computer system to provide flag and alert information to the operator for License Plates that have been designated as plates of interest through local and national databases. Other advanced options and features allow for full integration into other SkyCop® products such as Thermal Imaging Cameras and High Resolution Day / Night Cameras that can be mounted on the Pan & Tilt device. The MLPRV System can also monitor and control other citywide deployments of SkyCop Camera systems for advanced monitoring of a scene. Command Center can also display the MLPRV System while in operation.
Technical Information:
The MLPRV is a vehicle-mounted system for license plate image capture and video processing permitting autonomous operation (requiring no direct action of a user) to read license plates and match against various hot list of wanted vehicles.
The Mobile Video Surveillance Platform will record video and audio using H.264 compression and have the ability to record up to eight (8) analog cameras for on board video and audio storage with remote streaming to a command center. The system will include a 7” In-Dash Touchscreen for control and monitoring. The License Plate Recognition System (LPR) will use dual-camera imaging (high-resolution cameras for license plate reading, secondary cameras for evidence gathering), GPS (with or without) moving map display, back-end evidence and reporting software, and a wireless communication capability for transferring data between the back-end and each mobile unit. The LPR and Video Surveillance system is mounted on a Pan & Tilt drive system and can be installed on the center light bar or other preferred areas. The LPR and Surveillance Cameras can be automatically positioned on all sides of the vehicle while in operation.
I don’t know, if I wanted to create gridlock in SoMA / Financial / Union Square, I think I’d hire some jackasses to drive “mobile billboards” around the block and around the block all day long.
“Blocking the box” yesterday with a mobile billboard truck in the middle of the intersection of 3rd Street and Market:
“Hey everybody! Stop everything and look at me!”
Reverse angle – now the driver is only blocking one lane of 3rd Street:
Note the Washington state license plates.
And here’s the result of the advertising trucks. Gridlock:
Oh well.
“Blocking the box” is illegal these days, but the SFPD doesn’t really hand out tickets for that, so have at it.
Now I’ll tell you, Lyft taxi, a service that you just might like, isn’t legal, but mobile billboards, a “service” that you don’t like, are legal, more or less.
