Mapping the Progress of Policies to Limit Non-Safety Related Traffic Stops | Vera Institute

Over the past decade, efforts to limit non-safety-related traffic stops have swept across the United States. These stops for low-level infractions—like a dangling air freshener, single burnt-out taillight, or expired registration—do not improve traffic safety, and police officers have used them in ways that disproportionately subject Black drivers to physical, psychological, and economic harm. Oftentimes, police have used these stops as a pretext to search for guns and drugs—with little success. Police departments across the country are proving that change is possible. The first known policy to eliminate non-safety-related traffic stops was implemented in 2013 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, under the direction of then-Police Chief Harold Medlock. Fayetteville’s experiment led to decreased racial disparities in traffic enforcement and fewer car crashes and traffic injuries/fatalities, with no impact on non-traffic crime, showing that this type of policy can work. Although the Fayetteville policy ended in 2017, it set the stage for state and local governments, police departments, and district attorneys across the country to take action for safer, fairer traffic enforcement.
— Read on www.vera.org/ending-mass-incarceration/criminalization-racial-disparities/public-safety/redefining-public-safety-initiative/sensible-traffic-ordinances-for-public-safety/stops-map