How close is the nearest license plate camera in San Francisco, CA?

Half of the points sampled inside San Francisco are closer to a mapped camera than 0.2 miles, and half are farther: that median is the typical distance. Nine sampled points in ten are within 0.5 miles of one.

• San Francisco: typical distance0.2 miles
• Median of the 353 places measured in California0.4 miles
• Median of the 2,395 places measured nationwide0.5 miles
• San Francisco: nine points in ten are within0.5 miles

Across the 353 places measured in California, the median typical distance is 0.4 miles. Across the 2,395 places measured nationwide, it is 0.5 miles. The typical distance in San Francisco is shorter than both.

• Within a quarter mile of a mapped camera57% of the area
• Within half a mile of a mapped camera89% of the area

Both figures are shares of the area inside the boundary of San Francisco: the part that lies within 400 metres (about a quarter mile) and within 800 metres (about half a mile) of a mapped camera, wherever that camera stands. They describe distance to a pin and nothing else. In the median place measured nationwide, 46% of the area inside the boundary lies within half a mile of a mapped camera.

Median gap

250 feet

Middle half of the gaps

100 feet to 500 feet

Within 200 feet of another

230 of 489 cameras

The gap is the straight-line distance from each mapped camera in San Francisco to the nearest other one in San Francisco. Half of the gaps are shorter than 250 feet, and the middle half run from 100 feet to 500 feet. In San Francisco, 230 of 489 cameras stand within 200 feet (60 metres) of another, which usually means two on one pole or a group at one intersection.

A direction is recorded for 94% of the cameras here (458 of 489 cameras).

The most common recorded direction is northwest, with 67 cameras. Because 6 cameras carry two directions and are counted once in each, the eight counts add up to 464 directions from 458 cameras. A direction of exactly 0 is treated as not recorded, because that value is often left on a pin nobody set; that leaves out 21 cameras here.

The direction is the compass bearing a mapper noted for the camera, as it stood when they looked.

In San Francisco, 354 of 489 mapped cameras carry an operator tag, which is 72% of the cameras here.

• Public agency336 cameras
• Private15 cameras
• Camera company1 camera
• Other2 cameras
• Not recorded135 cameras

The kinds are read from the operator names mappers typed. A name is counted as private only when it plainly belongs to a business, an association or another private owner; a name the rules cannot place is counted as other; and where no operator is recorded the camera is not assumed to be anybody’s. The method page sets out how a name is sorted into a kind.

For every 10,000 residents, San Francisco has 5.6 mapped cameras. The 2020 Census counted 873,965 residents there. Among the places measured nationwide, the median is 8.1 mapped cameras for every 10,000 residents.

Other places with a mapped camera within 25 miles of San Francisco, the nearest first. Distances are straight lines between the places’ centre points.

• Daly City, CA4.9 miles south, 85 mapped cameras
• Brisbane, CA5 miles southeast, 13 mapped camerasShow Brisbane on the map
• Colma, CA5.4 miles south, 7 mapped camerasShow Colma on the map
• South San Francisco, CA7.1 miles south, 50 mapped cameras
• Sausalito, CA7.7 miles north, 13 mapped camerasShow Sausalito on the map
• Belvedere, CA8.3 miles north, 5 mapped camerasShow Belvedere on the map
• San Bruno, CA8.9 miles south, 54 mapped cameras
• Marin City, CA8.9 miles northwest, 1 mapped cameraShow Marin City on the map
• Alameda, CA9.7 miles east, 57 mapped cameras
• Berkeley, CA12.2 miles northeast, 81 mapped cameras
• Oakland, CA12.6 miles east, 536 mapped cameras
• Richmond, CA14.6 miles northeast, 80 mapped cameras

The distance and area figures for San Francisco come from 12,261 sample points, laid 100 metres apart across the area inside its boundary.

Each distance is a straight line from a sample point to the nearest mapped camera of any make, and that camera can stand outside the boundary. The counts are floors: a camera nobody has added to OpenStreetMap is not on this page, and a pin can be out of date.

• How every figure is measured
• Report a wrong pin