US needs to rethink its traffic enforcement: article

NEW YORK - The US Department of Transportation's Safe Streets for All program can be leveraged to support community-level innovation in roadway safety efforts, including by rethinking traffic enforcement strategies to improve the physical and psychological safety of Black drivers and others on the road, said an article published by the Center for American Progress on Wednesday.

Traffic stops are the most common way the public encounters police, with more than 20 million stops per year nationwide in the United States, according to the article.

For too long, promoting traffic safety has focused heavily on police enforcement of a range of traffic violations, from those that have serious roadway safety implications, such as speeding and reckless driving, to minor violations, such as a broken taillight or an item hanging from the rearview mirror, said the article.

"Rather than serving a legitimate traffic safety purpose, police enforcement of minor violations is often used as a pretext for investigating non-traffic-related crime," said the article. "This practice is rife with racial profiling, has little effect on serious crime, and, too often, escalates to violent injury or death at the hands of police."

"In particular, Black drivers are more likely than white drivers to be stopped by police for an alleged traffic violation, more likely to be searched during the course of that stop, and less likely to possess contraband when searched," it noted. "Alarmingly, Black people are also twice as likely as white people to be killed by police in the course of a traffic stop."

Current police traffic enforcement practices also distract from the real and urgent need to prevent traffic crashes and curtail dangerous driving, with traffic fatalities reaching historic highs in 2021 and remaining high in 2022, it said.

"It is critical for localities to rethink their approach to traffic safety, moving away from police enforcement of minor violations and toward interventions that address speeding and other structural factors that make crashes more likely and more fatal," it added.