SHOULD THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO BE SUED FOR NEGLECTING TO REPORT INJURY PRODUCING ACCIDENTS AS REQUIRED BY LAW IN CALIFORNIA?
California Vehicle Code Section 20008 mandates that all injury producing accidents be investigated by law enforcement in California. The problems with San Francisco’s Government Order 9.02, which instructs the SFPD to report only injury-producing collisions that are known at the scene of the accident, are much worse than apparent at first glance.
According to a recent study by the San Francisco Department of Public Health, there are many more Emergency Room visits identified as the result of vehicle accidents than the number of “injury-producing” collisions reported by the San Francisco Police Department. The SFDPH study linked data on injured pedestrians from police collision reports listed in the Statewide Integrated Traffic Reporting System (SWITRS, n = 1991) with records of pedestrians treated at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH, n = 1323) for 2000 and 2001. The data was analyzed using bivariate statistics, logistic regression and mapping.
The results of the study found that police collision reports greatly underestimated the number of injured pedestrians by 21%. Pedestrians treated at SFGH who were African-American were less likely than whites and females more likely than males to have a police collision report.
This assessment leads to the conclusion that many injury-producing accidents are not investigated by SFPD in San Francisco under Government Order 9.02. 911 dispatchers may be telling injured motorists that SFPD will not investigate accidents unless someone needs an ambulance. Also a person does not feel pain in the immediate aftermath of an accident, hence under Government Order 9.02 no police report. Additionally, if someone is unaware that they have the right to have a report drafted regardless of the officer’s determination, the potential for inherent bias is substantial if the police are not required to write a report for every collision.
The evidence reflected in the SFDPH’s study strongly indicates that San Francisco’s G.O. 9.02 has resulted in many injury-producing accidents being left unreported. The problem is the data on the location and severity of injury accidents is what traffic engineers use to determine what roads and intersections need safety improvements. With such a big pedestrian safety problem, the dated mandated by Vehicle Code Section 20008 is exactly the type of data San Francisco needs to build a safer city for pedestrians. It is time to raise the question of whether San Francisco’s Government Order 9.02 directly violates California law mandating all injury producing collisions be reported to SWITERS, and whether a lawsuit against the City may be required to correct the situation.
By: Albert G. Stoll, Jr. & Jennifer Nicoletto