Police traffic stops can alienate communities and lead to violent deaths like Tyre Nichols' -- is it time to rethink them?

While the effectiveness of traffic stops as a tool to apprehend serious criminals appears tenuous at best, what is clear is that pulling over drivers has the potential for negative, sometimes violent, outcomes – especially for Black drivers.

It can also affect entire communities. Ferguson, Missouri, is just one well-known example of how widespread racially biased traffic stops can erode trust in the police.

In places like Ferguson, evidence has shown that intensely policing minor traffic infractions, while legally permissible, can drown communities in fines, fees and administrative burdens. And Ferguson isn’t alone. Funds from penalty fines are used to help fund police and local governments across the U.S. A 2019 study found that in 600 jurisdictions across the U.S. fines made up more than 10% of funds. In almost half of those governments, money from ticketing accounted for more than 20% of funding.

This financial burden falls disproportionately on Black drivers. A 2021 New York Times analysis of 4,000 traffic citations handed out in Newburgh Heights, Ohio, a small town just south of Cleveland, found that 76% of license and insurance violations and 63% of speeding tickets were handed to Black drivers. Black residents made up just 22% of the town’s population.

Racial bias has long accompanied traffic stops. In the largest study of its kind, Stanford researchers in 2020 analyzed 100 million traffic stops and concluded that “persistent racial bias” existed. The study found that during daylight hours Black drivers are more likely to be pulled over than their white counterparts. But at nighttime, when the “veil of darkness” makes it harder for officers to racially identify drivers, white drivers are stopped more often than Black drivers.

This concurs with our own findings on traffic stop data from North Carolina: Black men are far more likely to be searched by cops than their white counterparts – at a rate of just under two to one – despite being less likely to be found with any illegal substances.

Traffic stops can also be a precursor to violent and deadly encounters, such as in the case of Nichols’ killing. The New York Times in 2021 found that over a five-year period, police officers in the U.S. killed more than 400 drivers or passengers not brandishing a gun or knife and not being pursued over a violent crime. Black Americans were disproportionately represented among those killed by officers, the newspaper found.

Using the traffic code to raise funds for jurisdictions or as a pretext to investigate serious crime produces only dubious public safety benefits and comes at a heavy costs, research indicates.

It has prompted some policymakers to look at other options, such as scaling back the types of infractions that can provide a basis for a traffic stop. In 2020, Virginia became the first state to ban officers from conducting traffic stops for low-level violations, such as a broken taillight or illegal tinted windows. A year earlier, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that it is impermissible for police officers to use a routine traffic stop as a springboard for broader criminal investigations by asking if they can search a vehicle without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

Such moves will limit the number of interactions police have with motorists. They could also save lives.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. Like this article? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.