Updating the body count database

From Joe Eskenazi in the SF Weekly:

The police are rejiggering their 2012, 2013, and 2014 pedestrian-vs.-vehicle tallies based on a 2013 switch to a different reporting system. This caused "inconsistencies...we are in the process of going over the data in our database to make sure it is accurate." That task figures to be complete by May 7...In the Year of the Citation, no one can accuse the police of a lack of vigilance...

No, it's really the SFMTA and City Hall that are guilty of that. Gee, I wonder why the SFPD switched "to a different reporting system" in 2013? Could it be that December, 2012, UC study that the SF Weekly---and every other city media outlet---has been ignoring that showed that the counting system the city was using was radically flawed? 

The study found that the city has been relying on police reports and ignoring a lot of serious cycling accidents---1,377 by my count---treated at the city's primary trauma center, San Francisco General Hospital, between 2000 and 2009.

The SF Weekly reporter didn't ask his sources---the SFPD and Walk San Francisco---any probing questions about why the new reporting system was considered necessary. 

Like every other reporter in the city, he's apparently waiting for City Hall, the SFPD, and the MTA to legitimize the new party line on the safety, or lack thereof, of city streets before he does any more "reporting" on the subject.

Sounds like May 7 will be the date when the city releases its long-overdue Collisions Report with the updated body count compiled using the new, improved counting system.

Chart of the Day absolves wind turbines

Thanks to Kevin Drum at Mother Jones.