🚀 go-pugleaf

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/12/BALM1KMPSE.DTL

| Police announced the stepped-up enforcement effort after a
| spate of street tragedies, starting with a July 15 incident in
| which a Washington, D.C., woman was fatally injured crossing
| the Embarcadero at Mission Street by a bicyclist who allegedly
| ran a red light.
|
| Five days later, a cyclist making an illegal left turn was
| killed by a box truck at the corner of Fremont and Mission
| streets.  On Aug. 4, a 9-year-old boy crossing Mission at
| New Montgomery Street was struck and badly injured, allegedly
| by a drunken driver.

=v= This "spate," as described, is of course a nonrepresentative
sample of the type of collisions and road fatalities that occur
in San Francisco.  The first incident is especially rare, of
course, which is why it is getting disproportionate attention.

=v= The last is more representative, in that pedestrians are
injured about twice a day in San Francisco.  Of course, the
_Chronicle_ would serve its readers better by explaining that
fact, and the wider context in general.  (Indeed they ought
to report these collisions even when they don't involve cute
kids or other novel details.  But exemplarizing the anomalous
is how "news" is manufactured, the truth be damned.)

| "We fully support attention to behaviors that are worrisome,
| but it's a worry to me if people are prioritizing issues like
| that," Shahum said. "There's a difference between someone
| running a red light and someone riding without reflectors."

=v= As is typical for the _Chronicle_, their excerpts leave
out the most relevant fact.  Bicyclists were being ticketed
for not having reflectors during the daytime, which is not
an infraction.  So what's actually being prioritized here
isn't even an issue.
   <_Jym_>