I read the linked article recently and it got me thinking about how we approach policing in traffic stops. To summarize the article, it is reporting a new law that limits police power to stop vehicles for expired registration or nonfunctioning headlights. According to the bill's author, this was written to reduce the racial bias in traffic stops, which is a great idea. However, I think this bill targets the wrong areas for improvement.
I personally disagree with because I believe cars should have extra burdens in exchange for operating such a deadly machine. That includes basic traffic stops for operating them in an unsafe manner, and as such I will mainly be focused on the headlight portion of the law. However, the people who I sided with in the article were GOP, who opposed it on a very different principle. They opposed the bill because of how traffic stops can be used as pretext to catch criminals, not because making people operate dangerous machinery safely was a priority.
It was this along with quotes in the article about how racialized traffic stops are that got me thinking. What is the purpose of traffic stops? To me, traffic stops should be to discourage driving dangerously or operating vehicles in dangerous ways. To police, and to some GOP politicians, it seems like traffic stops are pretext to commit search, seizure, and other questionably constitutional actions. Of course both parties unfairly target minorities, mainly black people in their traffic stops.
Of course, this doesn't even touch the many scandals of officers using a traffic stop to plant evidence to punish "undesiriables".
My main question for this thread is "Why?" Why are traffic stops used as a pretext for searches and seizures. The other question I have is, "What direction should stopping the overpolicing of traffic stops take?"