Ten Things You Should Know About Traffic Stops
According to the Stanford Open Policing Project, on a typical day in the United States, police officers make more than 50,000 traffic stops.
We know that nationwide, there is an outsized risk for certain groups of people when interacting with law enforcement. In fact, during traffic stops over the past five years, recent data from the New York Times has revealed that police officers killed more than 400 drivers or passengers who were unarmed and not under pursuit for a violent crime. TurnSignl exists to even the playing field in roadside interactions and to provide a de-escalating presence for both drivers and law enforcement officers.
Here are ten statistics to know about traffic stops:
The Stanford Open Policing Project is an interdisciplinary team effort that has analyzed nearly 100 million traffic stops, across 21 state patrol agencies and 29 municipal police departments, to discover trends in policing across the country. The data shows persistent evidence of racial bias during interactions with law enforcement.
Police officers generally stop Black drivers at higher rates than white drivers, even when controlled for age and gender.
Black and Hispanic drivers were searched more often than white drivers in nearly every jurisdiction, and law enforcement officers required less suspicion to search Black and Hispanic drivers.
Further insights from a team of analysts at the University of South Carolina clearly affirm the findings of the Stanford team, and the numbers were startling
Black drivers were 63% more likely to be stopped, even though they drove 16% less than white drivers.
During a traffic stop, Black drivers were 115% more likely to be subject to a search.
Law enforcement officers were more likely to find contraband in searches of white drivers.
“Police stops and search decisions suffer from persistent racial bias and point to the value of policy interventions to mitigate these disparities.”
In 2018 and 2019, the San Diego Police Department required officers to respond to a series of questions about the race, gender, and other identifying features of those stopped, including whether the individual appeared to be part of the LGBTQ community. While it’s worth noting that this data is based on police officers’ perceptions, rather than how the individual self-identified, it did reveal patterns of bias to be addressed.
Police listed reasonable suspicion as the reason for a stop 63.7% of the time for LGBTQ drivers, compared to 49.9% for non-LGBTQ drivers. These types of stops are often more likely to be influenced by bias, as compared to stops for traffic violations.
For transgender drivers specifically, reasonable suspicion was listed as the stop reason 75.5% of the time, compared to 50.2% of the time for cisgender drivers.
In 2012, Lambda Legal conducted a national survey exploring discrimination against LGBTQ individuals by police, courts, prisons, and school security. Although this is an older report than the others in this article, it still has interesting insights on LGBTQ discrimination during police stops.
73% of respondents had some form of face-to-face contact with police in the preceding five years, and 25% of these respondents reported negative interactions.
For respondents who also identified as POC, results were even more stark. While 8% of white respondents had been subject to search during police interactions, 17% of non-white respondents had this experience.
Transgender responders were 2x as likely to report being subject to search. 9% of cisgender respondents had been searched, compared to 18% of transgender respondents. These numbers were even higher for transgender respondents of color (25%) and specifically transgender women of color (36%).
The TurnSignl Solution
The systemic issues that lead to discrimination in traffic stops and during law enforcement interactions are pervasive and complex. A holistic approach to solving these problems will need to be multi-faceted: new training protocols, national and local legislation, as well as a change in overall civic attitudes towards these matters.
In the face of this change, it’s important to consider what can be done today to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities. TurnSignl aims to be a part of this solution. The easy-to-use mobile app connects drivers with an attorney during traffic stops. These vetted attorneys are trained in de-escalation and work to protect the civil rights of drivers. The app also records the interaction to provide firsthand evidence if any discrimination or misconduct occurs.
