Editing Traffic stop (section)

===Racial disparities===
Stanford has compiled data on race of drivers stopped in 200 million traffic stops.<ref name="stan">{{Cite web |title=The Stanford Open Policing Project |url=https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/ |access-date=2023-02-07 |website=openpolicing.stanford.edu}}</ref>
Stops are particularly common and harmful for minorities.<ref name="tcr">{{Cite web |date=2018-07-17 |title=Why Traffic Stops Don't Stop Crime |url=https://thecrimereport.org/2018/07/17/why-traffic-stops-dont-stop-crime/ |access-date=2023-02-07 |website=The Crime Report |language=en-US}}</ref>
California's annual report under the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) highlights that minorities form a bigger share of traffic stops than their share of the residents in each area.<ref name="ripa">{{Cite web |title=RIPA Board Reports |url=https://oag.ca.gov/ab953/board/reports |access-date=2023-08-03 |website=State of California - Department of Justice - Office of the Attorney General |date=28 December 2018 |language=en}}</ref>

Several organizations have commented that comparing minority share of traffic stops to resident population is an erroneous approach, and that there are other possible comparisons, including: driving age population, traffic accidents, licensed drivers, traffic violators, arrests, and crime suspects.<ref name="ojp6"/> On average, minorities work more jobs and work from home less than non-minorities, so are on the road more than their share of the residential population. Also, police are called by people in minority neighborhoods more than elsewhere, so police are in a position to see more traffic violations there.<ref name="nij13">{{Cite web |date=2013-01-09 |title=Racial Profiling and Traffic Stops |url=https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/racial-profiling-and-traffic-stops |access-date=2023-08-03 |website=National Institute of Justice |language=en}}</ref>
The New Mexico Sentencing Commission in 2007 called the use of Census data on residents a "common, but very poor method," and listed other methods.<ref name="nm7">{{Cite web |date=September 2007 |title=Bias-Based Policing: a Literature Review |url=https://isr.unm.edu/reports/2007/Bias%20Based%20Lit%20Review.pdf |website=New Mexico Sentencing Commission}}</ref>
A 2006 report from the US Department of Justice shows the different comparison groups used by studies up to that point.<ref name="ojp6">Table 4.9 on p.123,  discussed on pp.30-31. {{Cite web |last=McMahon  |first= Joyce; Joel Garner; Ronald Davis; Amanda Kraus  |date=July 2006|title=How to Correctly Collect and Analyze Racial Profiling Data: Your Reputation Depends On It!  |url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=3cf46e7dd9bbf5a2f2799104e4f782684e0a1e2b |access-date=2023-08-03 |website=Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice}}</ref> 
A 2023 study for the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC) listed some of the same alternative comparison groups: licensed drivers, vehicle owners, center city populations, field studies, and traffic violators.<ref name="porac23">{{Cite web |last=Withrow |first=Brian L.  |date=2023-01-02 |title=Racial & Identity Profiling Advisory Board 2022 Annual Report, A Critical Analysis |url=https://porac.org/wp-content/uploads/PORAC-2022-RIPA-Report-Analysis_FINAL.pdf |website=Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC)}}</ref>

There is another way comparative reports underestimate the number of Black drivers. Typically statistics on ''residents'' call them Black only if they are not Hispanic, and are not mixed race. Mixed race and Hispanic residents are counted separately.<ref name="ripapp">{{Cite web |date=2023-01-01 |title=RIPA Appendix 2023 |url=https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/ripa-appendix-2023.pdf |access-date=2023-08-03 |website=State of California - Department of Justice - Office of the Attorney General |language=en}}</ref> 
Police will count ''people stopped'' as Black even if they are also Hispanic or are also of another race. (RIPA shows that police rarely classify drivers as multi-racial.<ref name="ripa"/>) So the comparison of traffic stops underestimates the number of Blacks in the resident population and overestimates Blacks among the people stopped.

A Connecticut investigation found that 26,000 traffic tickets reported by state police did not appear in court records. The researchers hypothesized that state police were trying to look productive. The fake stops were disproportionately white, reducing apparent racial gaps. The police union said data entry errors were the likely cause.<ref name="ct">{{Cite news |last=Nierenberg |first=Amelia |date=2023-09-04 |title=Over 100 Connecticut state troopers accused of faking traffic stops |language=en-US |work=Boston Globe |url=https://www.boston.com/news/national-news/2023/09/04/over-100-connecticut-state-troopers-accused-of-faking-traffic-stops/ |access-date=2023-09-13}}</ref>