NPR finally notices less enforcement means more crime
Conn Carroll
More people are dying on roads than ever before, and NPR is finally beginning to realize that nonenforcement of traffic laws is a big reason why.
“Why do many of us drive dangerously on the roads? Because we think we can get away with it,” Governors Highway Safety Association CEO Jonathan Adkins told NPR. “There’s not enforcement out there, they’re hesitant to write tickets. And we’re seeing the results of that.”
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NPR notes that traffic deaths in the United States, measured by deaths per million miles traveled, are still almost 20% higher now, long after COVID has faded, than they were in 2019.
And NPR is finally willing to entertain the idea that the fact that traffic citations by police are down by 86% is a big part of the problem. NPR notes that many departments, including Seattle’s, are short-staffed since 2020, but it also notes that reduced traffic enforcement is also a matter of policy in some jurisdictions such as Minnesota, where liberal activists have pushed police departments to stop enforcing traffic violations.
“For people of color and specifically black people, they can actually be one of the most dangerous interactions that they have,” Urban Institute research associate Susan Nembhard told NPR. “And that’s from experiences of not only physical harm when something terrible happens — like a shooting or a murder or something like that — but also emotional harm and mental anxiety and stress.”
As big a role as the killing of George Floyd played in the rollback of police enforcement since 2020, and the Floyd killing definitely played a role in the incident, I think the killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 12, 2020, has played an underrated role in the lack of enforcement on traffic violations in particular.
For those of you who don’t remember, Atlanta police were called to a Wendy’s because a driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and was blocking the drive-thru. The responding officers woke the driver, Brooks, and directed him to park his car, which he did. The officers then conducted a field sobriety test and a breathalyzer, which Brooks failed. So far, Brooks had been complying with commands.
But when the officers went to arrest Brooks and put him in handcuffs, Brooks fought back, stole one of the officers’ stun guns, stunned one of the officers, and then fled on foot. The stunned officer hit his head on the pavement and suffered a concussion. Brooks still had the stun gun in his hand and fired it at the second officer while running away. The second officer then shot Brooks, who later died at the hospital.
The very next day, the concussed officer was placed on administrative duty, and the officer who shot Brooks was fired. Both men were criminally investigated and then cleared of all wrongdoing. The officer who shot Brooks and was fired later sued the city, won, and was reinstated. But that reinstatement didn’t happen until almost a year later.
The message from the Brooks incident was abundantly clear: Police officers who try to enforce the law, even something as uncontroversial as drunken driving, would be cut loose by city government if anybody got hurt.
If the leadership of a city is so willing to abandon officers who properly try to enforce traffic laws, then why should officers try to enforce traffic laws?