Reducing the Role of Police in Traffic Enforcement Could Increase Safety for Everyone

As calls to "defund the police" grow louder across the country, the California Bicycle Coalition has posted an excellent discussion of the issue, including a list of recommended policies. These policies, which include ways to shrink existing police departments while maintaining public safety and offering more resources to distressed communities, could dramatically change the way cities think about public safety.

Most activists that have rallied behind calls to Defund the Police are not calling for the total abolishment of police departments, and traffic safety advocates are no exception. Instead, Calbike calls for redirecting police budgets towards people doing the community work that helps prevent problems in the first place, such as social workers, homeless advocates, and healthcare providers.

CalBike reiterates that traffic stops are where most people are likely to come into contact with the police, and that data from police departments throughout the nation show large racial disparities in traffic stops and in police use of force. One analysis found that police were more likely to use force against unarmed Black people and much more likely to kill Black people who aren’t resisting arrest.

The racial profiling in traffic stops includes people on bikes and on foot. Bike East Bay compiled the numbers in the chart below, about stops in the city of Oakland

Writes CalBike:

CalBike offers six recommendations to help guide state policy changes that, they say, will shift traffic enforcement in an anti-racist direction. They are:

• Redirect funding from the California Highway Patrol budget to street redesign. That is, invest in street design - like protected bike lanes - that can be "self-enforcing."

• Redirect funding from the CHP to automated enforcement. Efforts to legalize automated enforcement, such as speed cameras, have been met with strong objections from police lobbyists, who have been powerful players in the legislative arena. This, despite their known efficacy:

• Divert Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) funding from police departments to community efforts. Currently OTS grants are used by police departments to conduct "safety enforcement campaigns," but those campaigns tend to be vague in focus and lacking in measurable outcomes--except for numbers of tickets written. Traffic cops still equate more tickets with more safety. Even in "bicycle-friendly" Berkeley, police have used OTS grants to ticket bicyclists who don't come to a dead stop at stop signs on quiet traffic-free streets - a most counterproductive effort.

• Decriminalize biking and walking. Unnecessary enforcement actions that do little to increase public safety include ticketing bicyclists for running stop signs, citing - and arresting - people for jaywalking, and ticketing youth for riding a bike without a helmet.
• Make public transportation, including bike and scooter share, free.

• Implement income-adjusted traffic fines.

CalBike is claiming no credit for creating these policy recommendations, but is committing to working on them. The recommendations are based on years of work done by community leaders and activists, including Black and brown urbanists like Tamika Butler, who have been speaking out about racism in planning and policing for years.

See CalBike's post here.