This opinion piece from the NYT is pure crap on so many fronts.
Police Officers Shouldn’t Be the Ones to Enforce Traffic Laws
Automated technology and unarmed monitors could do most of the job more efficiently and more safely.
By Sarah A. Seo
Dr. Seo is a professor at Columbia Law School who focuses on the history of criminal law and procedure and is the author of “Policing the Open Road.”
April 15, 2021
When Daunte Wright was fatally shot by an officer during a traffic stop near Minneapolis this week, he joined a long list of people who have died at the hands of the police after being pulled over for a traffic violation. Traffic stops should not be harrowing or dangerous experiences, but too often they are for people of color.
One way to address this problem is to reduce the number of encounters that drivers have with police officers. At the same time, any responsible reform must account for the fact that accidents involving motor vehicles are a leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 54. Road safety is itself a serious problem, one that requires laws and regulations that must be enforced.
How can we reduce traffic stops without undermining public safety? The solution is to decrease our reliance on human enforcement. Having police officers implement traffic laws is not the only way to promote road safety. Indeed, the evidence suggests that it is not even the optimal way to do so.
Automated speed cameras and red-light cameras, for example, have proved to be effective in decreasing traffic accidents, injuries and fatalities, precisely because they’re more consistent than human oversight. They also don’t selectively — or discriminatorily — choose to pull over violators. Automating citations for speeding, a major cause of accidents, could significantly reduce police encounters. In New York State, for example, speeding accounts for nearly 20 percent of all traffic citations, according to recent data.
The rest here
"Automated speed cameras and red-light cameras, for example, have proved to be effective in decreasing traffic accidents, injuries and fatalities, precisely because they’re more consistent than human oversight. They also don’t selectively — or discriminatorily — choose to pull over violators. Automating citations for speeding, a major cause of accidents, could significantly reduce police encounters".
Well, except that many states have abandoned the cameras for ticketing drivers as challenges have been made and won that the cameras are unconstitutional.
The whole opinion is more liberal drivel designed to make life easier for crooks and thugs.