They may have made some sense "back in the day", when pedestrians weren't used to car traffic, but these days perhaps they are just used as a pretext to search

They may have made some sense "back in the day", when pedestrians weren't used to car traffic, but these days perhaps they are just used as a pretext to search someone for contraband and check if they have any warrants: eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf2cbIgEP08&t=6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf2cbIgEP08&t=6s