Tag: Vehicle and Traffic Enforcement

Pittsburgh Police resume certain minor traffic stops despite policy against them | 90.5 WESA

This has been an interest of mine. How can a municipality dictate the enforcement of State Law? In this case vehicle and traffic law.

The below article has likes to the specific law and it allows for “secondary enforcement” but not primary enforcement.

The two violations I’ll discuss are expired registration and expired inspection. I am surprised that expired registration gets a pass because it’s a money grab for the State and expired inspection is a SAFETY issue and/or an EMISSIONS issue. Emissions! Hello environmentalists.

The main question is how can a municipality set aside a subset a laws and label them “Do Not Enforce”. Every other municipality enforces these laws yet in Pennsylvania yet in Pittsburgh these laws are purposefully under enforced.

What other State laws can be ignored? Theft? Damage to property? Assault? Murder? Or just vehicle and traffic laws?

When police take the oath of office the swear to uphold the laws and the constitution of the State and the municipality that they work in. How can a municipality have police stop enforcing state law?

The ARTICLE:

Pittsburgh Police officials say a city ordinance that blocks enforcement of certain minor traffic violations is “preventing them from doing their jobs.”
— Read on www.wesa.fm/politics-government/2023-01-12/pittsburgh-police-resume-secondary-traffic-stops-despite-city-ordinance-against-them

Racial Disparities in Traffic Stops – Public Policy Institute of California

Key Takeaways
Stark racial inequity has long been a deeply troubling aspect of our criminal justice system. In recent years, traffic stops have emerged as a key factor driving some of these inequities and an area of potential reform. Are there opportunities to identify kinds of traffic stops that could be enforced in alternative ways—potentially improving officer and civilian safety, enhancing police efficiency, and reducing racial disparities—without jeopardizing road safety?

To explore this question, in this report we use data on 3.4 million traffic stops made in 2019 by California’s 15 largest law enforcement agencies to examine racial disparities in stop outcomes and experiences across time of the day, type of law enforcement agency, and type of traffic violation.
— Read on www.ppic.org/publication/racial-disparities-in-traffic-stops/

Video: Driver slams into pedestrians while fleeing traffic stop in River North; 5-year-old among 3 injured – CWB Chicago

This is all because of the selfish actions of the drive of that vehicle. The drive should be charged with Att. Murder? Serious reckless assault? Reckless endangerment? There was no reason for the driver to leave the traffic stop like they did. It didn’t look like the officers completed the stop and released the driver. Maybe additional charges of resisting arrest for the vehicle and traffic law charges.

Unfortunately the common and routine narrative is to get rid of police enforcement of traffic laws and incidents like this would never occur. It is a fallacy to think that police stops cause the actions of drivers to speed off and hurt people. The focus should be on the actions and behaviors of the driver or offenders. It’s their decisions that result in the crimes they commit which they get stopped and arrested for.

This was a terrible event. This has nothing to do with police making traffic stops. It has everything to do with people who think there is no repercussions for not obeying police officer orders.

A driver sped away from a police traffic stop in River North, injuring a 5-year-old girl, a woman, and a Chicago police sergeant as he plowed through a busy crosswalk Saturday night, police said.
— Read on cwbchicago.com/2022/04/video-driver-flee-river-north-strike-pedestriians-girl.html

Chicago’s “Race-Neutral” Traffic Cameras Ticket Black and Latino Drivers the Most — ProPublica

A ProPublica analysis found that traffic cameras in Chicago disproportionately ticket Black and Latino motorists. But city officials plan to stick with them — and other cities may adopt them too.
— Read on www.propublica.org/article/chicagos-race-neutral-traffic-cameras-ticket-black-and-latino-drivers-the-most

2022 RIPA Board Report

The California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board (Board) is pleased to release its fifth annual Report. The Report contains an analysis of the millions of police and pedestrian stops conducted in 2020 under the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (“RIPA”) by 18 law enforcement agencies, including the 15 largest agencies, in California. The Report closely examines a wide range of issue areas related to racial and identity profiling, providing context and research to deepen stakeholders’ understanding of the stop data collected under the RIPA. In the Executive Summary, the Board provides an overview of the Report. For ease of reference, there is a separate Recommendations and Best Practices section pulling out the Board’s recommendations in 2022. The Board encourages law enforcement agencies, policymakers, the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST), community advocates, and individuals to use these recommendations and best practices as a platform for discussion and implementation of reforms that will improve public safety in California. The Board especially recognizes that the community is essential to any police reform and that agencies and government should include diverse community members to work in close partnership with them to improve police services in their communities and across California.


Download the full 2022 Report

The California State Attorney General Office can be found HERE

Past RIPA reports are available HERE