New White Paper: Driving Toward Equitable Traffic Enforcement

Policing strategies that emphasize traffic stops for low-level violations are sometimes lost within the broader - and urgent - calls for greater police accountability and justice reform. Digging into the numbers of police stops for low-level traffic offenses, however, tells a powerful story about inequity - and about how lawmakers are using abusive preemption to undermine locally led efforts to put policies in place that make traffic stops safer and more equitable for all. 

A new white paper from Local Progress and Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC), Driving Toward Equitable Traffic Enforcement, offers local advocates and policymakers a roadmap for advancing traffic safety policies that promote driving equity - while highlighting preemption-related concerns to keep in mind.  

The growing trend of abusive preemption intersecting with driving equity policies mirrors preemption’s abuse nationwide as a tool to keep inequitable and often racist policies in place. For example, the new white paper highlights how Black and Latine drivers are pulled over at disproportionately higher rates - and are more likely to be searched and subjected to force during traffic stops. In recent years, anywhere from 600 to 800 people have lost their lives after being pulled over by police - 28 percent of whom are Black drivers, even though Black people account for 13 percent of the general population. 

The paper explores policies like the Philadelphia Driving Equality Act, which have so far succeeded in addressing some of the root causes behind inequitable and harmful traffic stops. The Philadelphia measure both limits the circumstances under which certain traffic stops can be performed, and requires the collection and public reporting of related traffic enforcement data. Philadelphia lawmakers also crafted the policy in a way which allowed it to withstand a legal challenge from a local Fraternal Order of Police chapter. The police had argued, among other things, that the state’s vehicle code preempted portions of the city law. 

But other states offer a case study  for why advocates must continue collaborating to address preemption of local driving equity provisions. Lawmakers in Memphis had adopted the Tyre Nichols Driving Equality Act following Nichols’ death at the hands of Memphis police officers after a traffic stop. The officials had intended to better define the types of infractures which would allow police officers to initiate a traffic stop. Lawmakers in the capitol responded with ferocity and immediately  passed broad legislation that not only overrode Memphis’ Driving Equality Act, but also forbade any other municipality from enacting any type of policy that prevented law enforcement from taking what they deem to be “all necessary steps” in preventing and responding to crime. Advocates succeeded in narrowing the legislation to apply only to traffic stops, though Governor Bill Lee did sign the measure into law.

You can access the new white paper here. If you’d like to speak with any LSSC or Local Progress experts about the research and state of driving equity preemption broadly, please reach out to media@supportdemocracy.org.