Problems with the Traffic Stop in the News

Recent items in the news show problems with the way we generally, and Police in particular, understand the traffic stop. Too often it has become an occasion for high speed chases and shootings. By inaction, we have embraced this escalation as feature rather than bug. It's time to rethink it.

Blowing stops as death sentence

The news from the Grand Jury indemnifying Police for shooting Richard Meyers shows the dangerous ease by which Police escalate a failed traffic stop into a chase sometimes at high speed and endangering other road users, then continue to escalate into cornering a person, and ultimately killing them in a perverse administration of "justice."

No person deserves to be shot and killed for running a stop. 

No bystander deserves to be endangered by a car chase stemming from that level of traffic violation.

And no bystander deserves to be endangered in gunfire during a carelessly escalated traffic stop.

There should be better protocols for disengagement, and ticketing or arrest at another time, when things are going sideways and there is no immediate threat to others.

Friday, Seattle Times

Up in the Seattle area, concerns with differential enforcement, stops escalating to shootings, as well as ways a bike helmet law hampers public bike rental systems, King County ditched their bike helmet law.

Representative-Councilor Hoy opposes

At BikePortland in an update on HB 4015, which would allow "duly authorized traffic enforcement agents," who "are not police officers," to "review and issue citations based on photographs taken by photo red light cameras or photographs taken by photo radar cameras" they listed Representative Evans and Representative-Councilor Hoy as voting against the bill. That is disappointing to see. (In the City's positions on legislation for this session, I did not see anything that specifically addressed camera enforcement.) Fortunately the bill passed the House and is now in a Senate Committee.

Misallocation of traffic resource here

As the Mayor and others call for increased police staffing, it is likely that what we really have is a misallocation of resources, not a problem of understaffing.

February 2020

Finally, as a footnote, it will be interesting to consider a different kind of "traffic complaint." There is talk about one or more new blockades and attempts at intimidation and nullification with large trucks at the Capitol. It will be interesting to see how that is handled and what magnitude of force used to curb (or magnitude of force used simply to watch) its anti-democratic expression.