Summary
The States, not the Federal government, are in charge of enacting and implementing traffic laws in the US for historical and constitutional reasons. Uncritically increasing the number of traffic stops leads to more interactions between the public and law enforcement, raising the possibility of tense and deadly encounters that could disproportionately affect people of color and those with low incomes due to systemic inequalities and implicit and explicit bias. If your vehicle is stopped:
Present your driver's license, registration, and insurance documentation to the police upon request. It is possible to search your car without a warrant in several circumstances.
We must rethink how we enforce traffic laws in cities and suburbs because in order to effectively prevent avoidable fatalities and the frequent humiliation of Black and Latino drivers by law enforcement, it is imperative that we modify the way we advocate for traffic safety in the United States. Furthermore, traffic stops take up so much police time that some agencies have determined it is not worth the effort. Police investigate possible non-moving infractions for hours on end. This indicates that we have given up our constitutional rights and established a racially biased, labor-intensive, and hazardous traffic policing system in exchange for minimal gains in public safety. Our roadways have been turned into a Fourth Amendment-free zone where police can stop whomever they choose at random or, worse, on the basis of racial bigotry. According to Cities Try to Turn Tide on Police Traffic Stops it states, “A Cadillac with a Black man behind the wheel was a magnet for the Philadelphia police, he said. Now 37, he is still pulled over at least once a year in his aging Ford S.U.V., he said — sometimes twice in the same month — and never for any reason more serious than passing on the right, a faulty license plate or an expired registration” (Cities Try to Turn the Tide on Police Traffic Stops, 2022). This portrays that we begin by examining the frequency of police traffic stops in various parts of the nation in relation to local population. Police often pull over black drivers more frequently than they do white drivers, and they pull over Hispanic drivers more frequently than they do white drivers. Both traffic crashes and crime can be decreased with the use of traffic enforcement. Additionally, it mitigates the effects of crashes on other cars who have to wait through a crash scene or find an alternate way around one. If someone has a gun in the car or drugs, it will help the environment be safe. In particular, I do believe IN BANNING traffic stops in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Seattle etc., would bring positive changes to the justice system and the affected communities’ because Mayors, prosecutors, and local councils are supporting efforts to end these kind of stops more and more. The first significant American city to do so is Philadelphia, which forbade police officers from stopping cars for very minor infractions. “In Philadelphia, the police union has sued to block the ordinance that banned certain stops, saying it violates state laws. In Virginia, a coalition of police associations, local chiefs and Republican officials, including the attorney general, is campaigning to get rid of a ban on minor stops that Democrats passed before losing full control of the statehouse last November” (Cities Try to Turn the Tide on Police Traffic Stops, 2022).
Work Cited: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/us/police-traffic-stops.html#:~:text=Los%20Angeles%20last%20month%20became,have%20all%20taken%20similar%20steps.
