PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia law that bars police from pulling over drivers for some minor infractions contributed to a decline in traffic stops during its first year, but it did not meet its proponents’ stated goal of reducing racial disparities associated with those stops.
The city’s “driving equality” legislation, which passed City Council in 2021 and took effect in March 2022, classified eight low-level traffic violations, such as driving with a damaged bumper or a broken headlight, as “secondary,” meaning they couldn’t be the sole reason a driver was pulled over by police. Authorities were supposed to send tickets for those infractions instead.
Traffic stops associated with the targeted violations dropped by 54%, or nearly 16,000 interactions, between 2021 and 2022, according to Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, the bill’s author. His office worked with the Defender Association of Philadelphia to study traffic stops that took place in the first seven months of the legislation’s implementation.
