I read the linked article recently and it got me thinking about how we approach policing in traffic stops. To summarize the article, it is reporting a new law that limits police power to stop vehicles for expired registration or nonfunctioning headlights. According to the bill's author, this was written to reduce the racial bias in traffic stops, which is a great idea. However, I think this bill targets the wrong areas for improvement.
I personally disagree with because I believe cars should have extra burdens in exchange for operating such a deadly machine. That includes basic traffic stops for operating them in an unsafe manner, and as such I will mainly be focused on the headlight portion of the law. However, the people who I sided with in the article were GOP, who opposed it on a very different principle. They opposed the bill because of how traffic stops can be used as pretext to catch criminals, not because making people operate dangerous machinery safely was a priority.
It was this along with quotes in the article about how racialized traffic stops are that got me thinking. What is the purpose of traffic stops? To me, traffic stops should be to discourage driving dangerously or operating vehicles in dangerous ways. To police, and to some GOP politicians, it seems like traffic stops are pretext to commit search, seizure, and other questionably constitutional actions. Of course both parties unfairly target minorities, mainly black people in their traffic stops.
Of course, this doesn't even touch the many scandals of officers using a traffic stop to plant evidence to punish "undesiriables".
My main question for this thread is "Why?" Why are traffic stops used as a pretext for searches and seizures. The other question I have is, "What direction should stopping the overpolicing of traffic stops take?"
i live in a majority sfh zoned streetcar suburb, however the area is majority walkable and not too awful for biking as a confident adult because of the grid roads for the walkable portion.
however, we are surrounded on all sides outside of this pocket of grid streets by poorly zoned sfh dominated by no sidewalk cul de sacs and 4 lane stroads with painted door zone bike lanes. the most notable areas are anywhere particularly north (rich people so literally no sidewalk) and near freeway interchanges. our south freeway interchange is the worst of them because its very stroady and has an auto dealership next to it. the others dont even try to pretend theyre not highway interchanges.