Why Am I Being Stopped?

Transportation planning must include addressing what happens in a traffic stop. This July 4^th holiday weekend millions of travelers will take to the road to visit family and friends in celebration of the Independence holiday. Tens of thousands of them will be stopped by a vehicle and traffic law enforcement officer. A vehicle and traffic stop by law enforcement can be a dangerous sometimes scary event for both the law enforcement officer and motorist alike.

Who confronts us – do they look like us, are they from our neighborhood – and how we are confronted by the authority of the police often figures into the ultimate outcome of the stop.

In today’s age of ready cellphone recording, we do not have to look far to see stops that show outrageous behavior by officer and/or the driver/rider of the stopped vehicle. Too often the level and tone of the officer from the inception of the interaction is a raised voice, dictatorial and condescending. That, however, does not make the motorist correct if their response is to ignore directives from the police and or be disrespectful in return. It is a recipe for disaster.

Having been the Director of Field for a federal law enforcement agency, one of the things that I reminded my colleagues was that they were likely the only contact those professional drivers and their companies would have with law enforcement. It was as if they carried the flag on their back when they pulled out their badge and investigated or inspected with the full authority of the United States government behind them.

The Fugitive Safe Surrender program was established in the early 2000s. The Program was as a result of a traffic stop gone awry that left a law enforcement officer dead. For what, a non-violent warrant or a failure to comply with a traffic violation? If the point of the stop is to keep the public safe, then that public must include the very person who is being stopped.

We all have a hand in this perceived bad conduct. An Aurora police officer was attacked by three people after a traffic stop. There is video of a man ripping a ticket out of an officer’s hand, cursing the officer and peeling away from a traffic stop. Sadly, there is video of traffic stops for perceived traffic violations with a woman being ripped from a car tearing her rotator cuff, or a gun to an army officer’s head. It cannot be that in pursuit of safe motoring roadways that we create fear of being injured or killed by an officer or that we feel we have a carte blanche right to speak or act however we want to someone with a gun and a badge who represents the full weight of the law.

The vehicle and/or traffic stop is part of a greater transportation ecosystem. Every bit of it should be included in the planning and purpose of mobility on roadways across the country. It should be an established part of the process not an adjunct or an afterthought. In fact, testimony in many of these traffic stops that has gone viral is that there was no place to safely pull-over or the area is poorly lit. In many cases evidence has shown motorists continuing to travel, looking for a safe place to stop long after sirens and flashing lights have been turned on. 

Once again, we see infrastructure impacting citizens who can least afford interaction with law enforcement. People who based upon community, type of vehicle driven and even the color of their skin may be presumed guilty of some onerous offense despite the stop being initiated for a traffic violation. Approaches to transportation planning must include a comprehensive review of historic issues that relate to or are impacted by mobility infrastructure.

The dictionary defines transportation as the movement of goods and/or people from place to place by various means including foot, vehicle and transit networks. When we plan transportation systems for our neighborhoods and include the traffic stop, we are likely to create an infrastructure that has wide shoulders and many possibilities for motorists to pull over. Where well-lit roadways will provide motorists with a feeling of safety and security. We will have law enforcement officers that consider the ability of someone to stop safely based upon where they have initiated their signal to pull-over, and we will have courts and regulations that recognize the inability to safely pull-over as a valid and legitimate defense.

The political economy calls for the inclusion of traffic and vehicle stops to be a part of planning and design for every community. Holistic planning that considers the interaction between law enforcement and motorist will likely keep them both safe, which is the very purpose of a vehicle and traffic stop.