Use of uniform traffic tickets; granting of jurisdiction; forms; use of electronic devices. A) There will be even traffic. The fact that an officer stops a driver constitutes an arrest in which the driver has not been arrested, but is not at liberty to leave. When dealing with a typical detention, officers must have well-founded suspicions that the detainee is committing or has committed a crime.
But since roadblocks and sobriety checkpoints are generally legal, one might wonder if officers can generally stop drivers on a whim. It protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by law enforcement and applies when police stop traffic. The enforcement of some traffic laws can be nebulous and discretionary, and stops tend to be the most frequent contact between the public and the police. The officer testified that he had not seen the defendant's vehicle violate any traffic laws before carrying out the arrest.
For the same reasons that racial profiling complaints often stem from traffic stops, it's difficult to prove that racial profiling happens at a traffic stop. While some undercover police cars look like any other car, the officers who drive them will not reveal their cover to enforce a minor traffic violation.
