Your data shows that traffic citations are down. It doesn't show anything about whether that's due to lax enforcement or less occurrences.
In fact, if you look at a lot of those graphs, they hit a low point in 2020 - right when covid WFH would have drastically reduced a lot of traffic, and in turn, traffic crimes.
While you’re correct that you would see the same graphs if drivers had become exemplary, observing traffic in SF anecdotally point towards the opposite. It’s frankly shocking.
I could search my heart to try to interpret your sarcastic comments in good-faith.
Like, maybe you mean, "Surely, there should be a roughly linear relationship between the number of cars on the road and the number of unlawful traffic activities, and the decrease in driving in San Francisco was only X%, not 95%." To which I could say something like, "Hmm, yeah, that's a good point. Maybe less people run red lights if they aren't feeling frustrated from traffic already - or maybe the opposite, maybe more people run them if there isn't any perceived cross traffic. Would it be okay, or even good, to loosen traffic enforcement if the actual risk of the illegal activity has decreased?"
But honestly? You sound like you've got some really strong guiding narratives that you're not willing to talk about like an adult. So I'm not gonna play.
Considering the chart starts in 2014, I can understand the parent commenter having difficulty taking your Covid-19 argument in good faith.
What data would you need to see to change your mind?
PS: I went looking for data, and the number of traffic fatalities per year haven't gone up significantly since 2014. So I stand corrected. It's a big relief, as an SF resident; parent commenter's chart was really worrying. Phew
traffic enforcement probably doesn't (strongly) correlate with traffic fatalities. One is a revenue generation stream, the other is just probabilities.
Your data shows that traffic citations are down. It doesn't show anything about whether that's due to lax enforcement or less occurrences.
In fact, if you look at a lot of those graphs, they hit a low point in 2020 - right when covid WFH would have drastically reduced a lot of traffic, and in turn, traffic crimes.