1 Year in, Advocates Launch Campaign to Expand SF’s Speed Camera Program

Hailing the results of a new report showing automated speed cameras are reducing dangerous speeding in San Francisco, city leaders and traffic safety advocates on Wednesday kicked off a campaign to expand the program.

Since the first of the city’s speed cameras, which are spread out across 33 locations in the city, were installed in March 2025, the share of drivers traveling 10 mph or more above the speed limit has dropped by nearly 80% across camera locations, compared to pre-implementation levels, according to a report by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

“ San Francisco is proving that this is a technology that works, it’s saving lives, and it’s time to double down and get more of it,” said San Francisco District Six Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who said he plans to introduce a resolution to the city’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday reaffirming support for the program and highlighting its success.

The cameras began issuing citations starting at $50 to drivers traveling 11 mph or more over the speed limit in August 2025, following a several-month warning period, when $0 citations were issued.

The speed camera program was authorized by AB 645, a 2023 law which allowed six California cities — including Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, Glendale and Long Beach — to pilot automated speed cameras for five years, in a bid to make streets safer. Speeding is a primary factor in traffic collisions that cause serious injury or death in San Francisco, according to the SFMTA. An average of 29 people have died in traffic collisions in the city each year since 2014.

The pedestrian safety advocacy non-profit Walk San Francisco said it’s beginning to explore ways to expand and strengthen automated speed camera programs in both San Francisco and across the state, including making the pilot permanent or increasing the number of cameras.

”Drivers need to slow down, and the great news is that because of this technology, they are,” said Jodie Medeiros, executive director of Walk San Francisco.

SFMTA officials said the cameras issued more than 163,900 citations and over 553,600 warnings as of the end of March.

The number of warnings and citations issued by the cameras steadily decreased from August 2025 to January, but has since ticked up, hitting a high of nearly 53,000 in March, the highest yet since all cameras started citing drivers.

The SFMTA said a range of factors, including traffic volume, major events like the Super Bowl, construction activity and ongoing refinements to the technology, can influence the citation rate.

SFMTA Streets Division Director Viktoriya Wise said the agency isn’t measuring success by the number of citations issued, but rather if drivers are slowing down.

In August 2025, 43% of drivers who received a citation were traveling 16-20 mph over the speed limit, but by last month, that number had dropped to 24%. Meanwhile, the percentage of people who received a ticket for driving 11-15 mph over the speed limit climbed in August 2025 from 49% to 71% in March 2026.

“ If we all slow down a little bit, and if our behavior is adjusted through this program, that is a success,” Wise said.

For Lori Lai, a survivor of a 2023 traffic collision involving a speeding driver in the city’s Excelsior neighborhood, the speed camera program is a way to keep other people from getting hurt.

“I had made it a little more than halfway to the median in the middle of Alemany Boulevard, when out of nowhere, a driver making a left turn struck me, throwing my body up over the hood of his car, and my head slammed against the windshield,” Lai said. “ It was loud enough that people heard it from their homes.”

Lai is a member of Families for Safe Streets, a group of people who have been directly affected by traffic crashes. She said the incident forced her to go on disability, which cut her pay. It took her over a year to recover, she said, but she counts herself as one of the lucky ones.

“ When I look around our city, it is clear that we need more prevention when it comes to keeping people safe. When I see a speed camera, I see lives saved and tragedies averted,” Lai said.

Oakland joined San Francisco in implementing its speed camera program earlier this year, while San Jose is planning to install its cameras later this year. No matter when San Jose begins its five-year pilot, the programs have a hard cutoff date of January 2032.

Dorsey said he was surprised at how difficult it was to get AB 645 passed, noting that it took six attempts over eight years in the California legislature.

“It was revelatory to me here in the bubble of San Francisco. I don’t think we fully appreciate that this is a great, big, car-driving state, and we really had an uphill battle for many years,” Dorsey said.