The latest near-miss happened at 19th and Guerrero, where a dad on an e-bike — with a kid strapped to the back, no less — came ripping around a blind corner on the sidewalk and nearly flattened a pedestrian. The irony is thick enough to spread on sourdough: Dad commandeers the sidewalk to keep his kid safe while turning every walker in his path into a potential hood ornament.

This isn't an isolated incident. Anyone who walks regularly in the Mission, the Panhandle, or SoMa knows the drill. You hear the whir, you feel the breeze, and you pray your reflexes are faster than their throttle. Some of these e-bikes top 30 mph and weigh upwards of 70 pounds. That's not a bicycle — that's a projectile.

As one local put it bluntly: "Bikes should never be on sidewalks, either e-bikes or analog. Sidewalks are for pedestrians and bikes are vehicles." Another pointed out the broader chaos: bikes and scooters routinely blast the wrong way down bike lanes too, making the streets a free-for-all for everyone.

But here's where we need to be honest with ourselves. As one Bay Area resident correctly noted, "This is a social issue, not a 'we need worse penalties' issue." And that's partially right — we don't necessarily need new laws. We need the ones we have to actually mean something.

San Francisco has developed a chronic allergy to enforcement. We write rules, pat ourselves on the back, and then look the other way when people ignore them. The result? A city where pedestrians — the most vulnerable people on any street — are the ones dodging 60-pound machines on their own sidewalks.

You don't need to classify e-bikes as motorcycles or start impounding property to fix this. You need cops or parking control officers to actually issue citations. You need consequences that exist outside of a PDF on some city website. A $200 ticket handed out consistently would change behavior faster than any new regulation.

Sidewalks are the last safe space for people on foot. If San Francisco can't even protect that, what exactly are we paying city government to do?