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I read the requirements and concerns as yet another sign we need to split up traffic enforcement and ordinary policing. The cars writing traffic tickets and res

I read the requirements and concerns as yet another sign we need to split up traffic enforcement and ordinary policing. The cars writing traffic tickets and responding to breakdowns and minor accidents don’t need half this crap. We could get by with a ton fewer cops that way. (“What about car chases?” statistically they’re a terrible idea and we should stop doing them in almost all circumstances, so there’s little harm in losing the “tactical” capacity of your traffic enforcement cars)

unsnap_biceps 2y ago
I thought a majority of arrests are made during traffic stops, if you run and they can't chase, how do you expect arrests to happen? I'm not a fan of the current system, but I struggle to personally come up with a better one.
- vundercind 2y ago
  > I thought a majority of arrests are made during traffic stops Maybe, but what proportion of stops end in an arrest? A largish proportion of cop traffic enforcement & safety activity ends in a tow, but we don’t expect traffic enforcement cops to drive tow trucks. The traffic safety people can call out the regular cops if they need them. > if you run and they can't chase, how do you expect arrests to happen? Recording devices, reports, follow up. Chases are a public menace, especially when they do them over minor offenses, as is the case for the overwhelming majority of chases. Given the danger, I’d much rather anyone who’s not an active danger to life get away than a car chase occur. The evidence is pretty far on the side of “these are net-harmful”. Cops just like them a lot, so we keep doing them (many places do, anyway—some have all but eliminated them) Risk of added charges, potentially more serious than the original offense, means the majority of folks facing arrest won’t flee, anyway.
  - falcolas 2y ago
    There are three major sets of modification that I can think of which are done to a cruiser: - Light bars/electronics/sirens - Armoring - Ability to detain suspects The first is going to be required for every police or sheriff cruiser. The second will reduce casualties (arguably for both sides) in an armed engagement. Ideally required for any action which could create an armed engagement. Because a minimum of one side is always armed, every encounter can become an armed engagement. Huzzah USA etc. etc. The third is required if the police officer will ever respond to anything that isn't giving out a parking ticket. Traffic stops can include anything from an armed engagement down to a drunk driver or peaceful execution of an outstanding warrant. Then there's simple responding to calls, which can also include all of the above. The lack of ability to detain someone means you need (as stated in the article) more officers responding to an engagement.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      Light bars, cameras, comms equipment. The traffic enforcement cars need those. Not so much the armor and detainment capabilities. If it’s known they don’t pursue and aren’t likely to attack you to secure an arrest, the risk for them from the person they’re stopping (traffic on the e.g. highway they’re standing next to is another matter) in an encounter is a ton lower. Why fight them when you can just leave? And rack up another charge, sure, but one a hell of a lot less serious than attacking someone and then still fleeing. It does mean calling in a regular cop for arrests, but what proportion of stops result in arrests in a day? They also have to call in tow trucks and ambulances and fire trucks.
      - falcolas 2y ago
        > If it’s known they don’t pursue and aren’t likely to attack you to secure an arrest, the risk for them from the person they’re stopping If this is true and not just an assumption (FWIW, I think you're wrong - human nature is not that logical when in fight or flight brain) it should be possible to come up with numbers to back this up. There are many locations in the US where the default is not to chase. As a side note, they have to detain someone while waiting. That someone's care is also legally in their hands at that point; it doesn't make a lot of sense from a civilian safety perspective to just set them on the side of the highway.
  - unsnap_biceps 2y ago
    So the answer is less/no chases and more raids? I totally agree that the majority of folks don't flee and wouldn't flee, but the folks that do, they're the main dangers we want to catch anyway. I struggle to agree with the concept that raids ate better than chases.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      I don’t think you’ll find that most chases are over issues that warrant turning it into a situation involving significant risk of serious injury or death for both those involved (which may include passengers in the fleeing car) and bystanders.
      - unsnap_biceps 2y ago
        I completely understand, however, if they don't chase and it's not enough to try to catch the person in their house/work/whatever, it's practically the same as the law not being enforced, right? I struggle to think it's fair to people that don't run if they're held responsible but people that run aren't.
        vundercind 2y ago
        How many deaths is this effort at fairness worth? I think enough would be caught by passive/invisible surveillance (drone tracking and other methods—these are already used) and simply following up at home or work that we’re not talking about some kind of get-away-free card, here. This also assumes a very-high rate of apprehension from chases, which does not seem to be the case (possibly under 50% when relatively-loose chase policies are in place—rates of apprehension, though not total apprehensions, appear to trend much higher with more-restrictive chase policies, as one might expect) There have been some places that have either restricted or loosened restrictions on police chases over the last couple decades, which should give us an excellent data set to see the effects of these policies… unfortunately, police data gathering and sharing is notoriously awful, with the result that most attempts at analyzing the statistics of policing in the US are necessarily full of guesswork.
  - eurleif 2y ago
    >A largish proportion of cop traffic enforcement & safety activity ends in a tow, but we don’t expect traffic enforcement cops to drive tow trucks. These are clearly disanalogous. You can leave a car waiting for a tow truck; it's not going to drive off on its own. But you can't just leave a suspect waiting to be arrested unless they're restrained (in which case, you've already done the hard part of arresting them).
    - vundercind 2y ago
      Ambulances, fire trucks. We already expect them to call for help in a significant minority of stops and traffic safety actions, including for many where they remain while waiting for the help.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  > if you run and they can't chase, how do you expect arrests to happen? Lots of police departments have adopted a stance that they won't chase you except for certain circumstances (such as if you're presenting an immediate threat to the public). Instead, they'll track the running suspect, position cars in the path of the vehicle and do ambushes involving spike strips, pit maneuvers, etc. Or, depending on the situation, they may do nothing in the moment and arrest the driver later at their home.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Even spike traps and “pit maneuvers” (AKA forcing another car to lose control at speed—take away the cool term and they’re just causing someone to lose control of a ton or three of steel on public streets, which is obviously nuts even if the only people at risk are in the fleeing car, unless the situation is already extreme) are crazy-dangerous and aren’t good to employ outside exceptional circumstances. These tactics (outside extraordinary cases) are a solution to a problem the cops created themselves by chasing the fleeing suspect, and turning it into a life-and-death matter. It’s one of those cases where a knee-jerk and kinda authoritarian sense of justice (“they’re running, you can’t run from the cops, they have to go after them!”) is at sharply at odds with public benefit.
- michaelt 2y ago
  At least in my country, there are several tiers of police driver training/expertise. A large amount of police work involves things like "go to the scene of the burglary from yesterday, take witness statements and fingerprints" and "go to the place the noise complaint came from, tell them to turn it down" and things like that. Tasks that need a police car and timely response, but they don't need to be speeding and running red lights. This work is done by officers in kinda basic police cars. Other officers, with advanced driver training, are called on for tasks that might need high speed pursuit. They get faster cars, like Mitsubishi Evos and Impreza WRXes.
noncoml 2y ago
That’s like saying let’s not equip planes that won’t crash with black boxes. Only the ones that crash need it. Let’s split up crashing and non crashing planes.
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  No it's not. If something was stolen from your car or the neighbors music is too loud, you don't need a fully armed paramilitary with a 500 horsepower souped up car. A dude with a baton in a Prius is perfectly fine. If they need bigger guns, they can call them in if necessary.
- vundercind 2y ago
  What would traffic enforcement folks be doing that would require all kinds of tactical upgrades to their cars, once we take car chases (again: already usually a bad idea and danger to the public well in excess of their benefits, no matter how the cop cars are equipped) out of the picture? Scenario: ordinary traffic stop. Writes ticket or issues warning. Everything’s fine. Scenario: I’m driving with a suspended license and may have an outstanding warrant for a missed court date. I elect not to run. Normal cop car called, takes me in. I won’t attack the traffic enforcement officer, because this is all being recorded and that gains me nothing except lost time and more charges, since if… Scenario: The above is the situation but I elect to flee. No chase occurs, so this doesn’t turn into a prolonged risk to the public. Since I know the traffic enforcers don’t pursue and it’s well-publicized that their car and body cam footage is uploaded constantly, there’s zero reason to engage with or attempt to harm them. The remaining risks are things that aren’t really mitigated by car upgrades (someone driving off mid-stop, which is risky for the traffic enforcer already standing next to the stopped-person’s car) or the kind of risks also present at, I dunno, the grocery store (someone armed and crazy attacks you for absolutely no conceivable benefit to themselves) A bonus is that this would make non-traffic-enforcement cops a ton safer, since most of their deaths are from traffic accidents (not intentional attacks with a vehicle, to distinguish the two) and they’d spend way less time driving, or standing on the side of highways. [edit] I got that wrong, vehicle strikes and car crashes are more like ~40% of deaths on the job, not over half. Still, it’s way up the list of risks. Unclear how major injury causes break down.
ericd 2y ago
I was just listening to the head of a municipal bus line on NPR talking about how there’s 70% non-payment of fares. Less than a third of his riders are doing what they’re supposed to. The interviewer then asked whether it was true that there was a policy not to even have a bus driver mention that the fare hadn’t been paid, let alone confront the person or kick them off, the guy responded, saying that that was indeed the policy, because the safety of his staff was paramount. This was just after he finished complaining about how people should follow social rules, but he’s apparently unwilling to enforce them. I personally think that public transportation should be fully subsidized as a public good, but if you’re going to have a rule, you need to enforce it if you want people to maintain general respect for the law. So maybe just letting people run away from the police because it might be dangerous to chase them doesn’t seem like the right solution. At least find another way to implement the consequence. The alternatives that spring to mind require extensive surveillance, though, so I’m not sure there is a preferable alternative.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- vundercind 2y ago
  > maybe just letting people run away from the police because it might be dangerous to chase them doesn’t seem like the right solution. License plates exist and cop cars already scan those. Turning a possible arrest into a chase puts the suspect, anyone else in the car with them, the cops, and various uninvolved bystanders at risk of serious injury or death. It is an extreme escalation and should be reserved for extreme situations.
  - ericd 2y ago
    Sure, assuming it's not a stolen car. But I don't think that's a safe assumption in the cases where a chase is potentially worthwhile.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      Potentially worthwhile isn’t enough to Mad Max after a suspect and maybe force them to lose control and crash, on public roads. These policies can and do kill and maim lots of people every year.

unsnap_biceps 2y ago

I thought a majority of arrests are made during traffic stops, if you run and they can't chase, how do you expect arrests to happen? I'm not a fan of the current system, but I struggle to personally come up with a better one.

vundercind 2y ago
> I thought a majority of arrests are made during traffic stops Maybe, but what proportion of stops end in an arrest? A largish proportion of cop traffic enforcement & safety activity ends in a tow, but we don’t expect traffic enforcement cops to drive tow trucks. The traffic safety people can call out the regular cops if they need them. > if you run and they can't chase, how do you expect arrests to happen? Recording devices, reports, follow up. Chases are a public menace, especially when they do them over minor offenses, as is the case for the overwhelming majority of chases. Given the danger, I’d much rather anyone who’s not an active danger to life get away than a car chase occur. The evidence is pretty far on the side of “these are net-harmful”. Cops just like them a lot, so we keep doing them (many places do, anyway—some have all but eliminated them) Risk of added charges, potentially more serious than the original offense, means the majority of folks facing arrest won’t flee, anyway.
- falcolas 2y ago
  There are three major sets of modification that I can think of which are done to a cruiser: - Light bars/electronics/sirens - Armoring - Ability to detain suspects The first is going to be required for every police or sheriff cruiser. The second will reduce casualties (arguably for both sides) in an armed engagement. Ideally required for any action which could create an armed engagement. Because a minimum of one side is always armed, every encounter can become an armed engagement. Huzzah USA etc. etc. The third is required if the police officer will ever respond to anything that isn't giving out a parking ticket. Traffic stops can include anything from an armed engagement down to a drunk driver or peaceful execution of an outstanding warrant. Then there's simple responding to calls, which can also include all of the above. The lack of ability to detain someone means you need (as stated in the article) more officers responding to an engagement.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Light bars, cameras, comms equipment. The traffic enforcement cars need those. Not so much the armor and detainment capabilities. If it’s known they don’t pursue and aren’t likely to attack you to secure an arrest, the risk for them from the person they’re stopping (traffic on the e.g. highway they’re standing next to is another matter) in an encounter is a ton lower. Why fight them when you can just leave? And rack up another charge, sure, but one a hell of a lot less serious than attacking someone and then still fleeing. It does mean calling in a regular cop for arrests, but what proportion of stops result in arrests in a day? They also have to call in tow trucks and ambulances and fire trucks.
    - falcolas 2y ago
      > If it’s known they don’t pursue and aren’t likely to attack you to secure an arrest, the risk for them from the person they’re stopping If this is true and not just an assumption (FWIW, I think you're wrong - human nature is not that logical when in fight or flight brain) it should be possible to come up with numbers to back this up. There are many locations in the US where the default is not to chase. As a side note, they have to detain someone while waiting. That someone's care is also legally in their hands at that point; it doesn't make a lot of sense from a civilian safety perspective to just set them on the side of the highway.
- unsnap_biceps 2y ago
  So the answer is less/no chases and more raids? I totally agree that the majority of folks don't flee and wouldn't flee, but the folks that do, they're the main dangers we want to catch anyway. I struggle to agree with the concept that raids ate better than chases.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    I don’t think you’ll find that most chases are over issues that warrant turning it into a situation involving significant risk of serious injury or death for both those involved (which may include passengers in the fleeing car) and bystanders.
    - unsnap_biceps 2y ago
      I completely understand, however, if they don't chase and it's not enough to try to catch the person in their house/work/whatever, it's practically the same as the law not being enforced, right? I struggle to think it's fair to people that don't run if they're held responsible but people that run aren't.
      - vundercind 2y ago
        How many deaths is this effort at fairness worth? I think enough would be caught by passive/invisible surveillance (drone tracking and other methods—these are already used) and simply following up at home or work that we’re not talking about some kind of get-away-free card, here. This also assumes a very-high rate of apprehension from chases, which does not seem to be the case (possibly under 50% when relatively-loose chase policies are in place—rates of apprehension, though not total apprehensions, appear to trend much higher with more-restrictive chase policies, as one might expect) There have been some places that have either restricted or loosened restrictions on police chases over the last couple decades, which should give us an excellent data set to see the effects of these policies… unfortunately, police data gathering and sharing is notoriously awful, with the result that most attempts at analyzing the statistics of policing in the US are necessarily full of guesswork.
- eurleif 2y ago
  >A largish proportion of cop traffic enforcement & safety activity ends in a tow, but we don’t expect traffic enforcement cops to drive tow trucks. These are clearly disanalogous. You can leave a car waiting for a tow truck; it's not going to drive off on its own. But you can't just leave a suspect waiting to be arrested unless they're restrained (in which case, you've already done the hard part of arresting them).
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Ambulances, fire trucks. We already expect them to call for help in a significant minority of stops and traffic safety actions, including for many where they remain while waiting for the help.
JohnFen 2y ago
> if you run and they can't chase, how do you expect arrests to happen? Lots of police departments have adopted a stance that they won't chase you except for certain circumstances (such as if you're presenting an immediate threat to the public). Instead, they'll track the running suspect, position cars in the path of the vehicle and do ambushes involving spike strips, pit maneuvers, etc. Or, depending on the situation, they may do nothing in the moment and arrest the driver later at their home.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Even spike traps and “pit maneuvers” (AKA forcing another car to lose control at speed—take away the cool term and they’re just causing someone to lose control of a ton or three of steel on public streets, which is obviously nuts even if the only people at risk are in the fleeing car, unless the situation is already extreme) are crazy-dangerous and aren’t good to employ outside exceptional circumstances. These tactics (outside extraordinary cases) are a solution to a problem the cops created themselves by chasing the fleeing suspect, and turning it into a life-and-death matter. It’s one of those cases where a knee-jerk and kinda authoritarian sense of justice (“they’re running, you can’t run from the cops, they have to go after them!”) is at sharply at odds with public benefit.
michaelt 2y ago
At least in my country, there are several tiers of police driver training/expertise. A large amount of police work involves things like "go to the scene of the burglary from yesterday, take witness statements and fingerprints" and "go to the place the noise complaint came from, tell them to turn it down" and things like that. Tasks that need a police car and timely response, but they don't need to be speeding and running red lights. This work is done by officers in kinda basic police cars. Other officers, with advanced driver training, are called on for tasks that might need high speed pursuit. They get faster cars, like Mitsubishi Evos and Impreza WRXes.

noncoml 2y ago

That’s like saying let’s not equip planes that won’t crash with black boxes. Only the ones that crash need it. Let’s split up crashing and non crashing planes.

bongodongobob 2y ago
No it's not. If something was stolen from your car or the neighbors music is too loud, you don't need a fully armed paramilitary with a 500 horsepower souped up car. A dude with a baton in a Prius is perfectly fine. If they need bigger guns, they can call them in if necessary.
vundercind 2y ago
What would traffic enforcement folks be doing that would require all kinds of tactical upgrades to their cars, once we take car chases (again: already usually a bad idea and danger to the public well in excess of their benefits, no matter how the cop cars are equipped) out of the picture? Scenario: ordinary traffic stop. Writes ticket or issues warning. Everything’s fine. Scenario: I’m driving with a suspended license and may have an outstanding warrant for a missed court date. I elect not to run. Normal cop car called, takes me in. I won’t attack the traffic enforcement officer, because this is all being recorded and that gains me nothing except lost time and more charges, since if… Scenario: The above is the situation but I elect to flee. No chase occurs, so this doesn’t turn into a prolonged risk to the public. Since I know the traffic enforcers don’t pursue and it’s well-publicized that their car and body cam footage is uploaded constantly, there’s zero reason to engage with or attempt to harm them. The remaining risks are things that aren’t really mitigated by car upgrades (someone driving off mid-stop, which is risky for the traffic enforcer already standing next to the stopped-person’s car) or the kind of risks also present at, I dunno, the grocery store (someone armed and crazy attacks you for absolutely no conceivable benefit to themselves) A bonus is that this would make non-traffic-enforcement cops a ton safer, since most of their deaths are from traffic accidents (not intentional attacks with a vehicle, to distinguish the two) and they’d spend way less time driving, or standing on the side of highways. [edit] I got that wrong, vehicle strikes and car crashes are more like ~40% of deaths on the job, not over half. Still, it’s way up the list of risks. Unclear how major injury causes break down.

ericd 2y ago

I was just listening to the head of a municipal bus line on NPR talking about how there’s 70% non-payment of fares. Less than a third of his riders are doing what they’re supposed to. The interviewer then asked whether it was true that there was a policy not to even have a bus driver mention that the fare hadn’t been paid, let alone confront the person or kick them off, the guy responded, saying that that was indeed the policy, because the safety of his staff was paramount. This was just after he finished complaining about how people should follow social rules, but he’s apparently unwilling to enforce them. I personally think that public transportation should be fully subsidized as a public good, but if you’re going to have a rule, you need to enforce it if you want people to maintain general respect for the law. So maybe just letting people run away from the police because it might be dangerous to chase them doesn’t seem like the right solution. At least find another way to implement the consequence. The alternatives that spring to mind require extensive surveillance, though, so I’m not sure there is a preferable alternative.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
vundercind 2y ago
> maybe just letting people run away from the police because it might be dangerous to chase them doesn’t seem like the right solution. License plates exist and cop cars already scan those. Turning a possible arrest into a chase puts the suspect, anyone else in the car with them, the cops, and various uninvolved bystanders at risk of serious injury or death. It is an extreme escalation and should be reserved for extreme situations.
- ericd 2y ago
  Sure, assuming it's not a stolen car. But I don't think that's a safe assumption in the cases where a chase is potentially worthwhile.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Potentially worthwhile isn’t enough to Mad Max after a suspect and maybe force them to lose control and crash, on public roads. These policies can and do kill and maim lots of people every year.