> ...rideshare data from Lyft in the state of Florida to compare minority drivers with their white counterparts. Lyft objectively measured drivers’ locations, driving speed, and location speed limits .... White and minority drivers showed no discernible differences in speeding behaviors or traffic violations. However, when both drove at identical speeds, police were still 33% more likely to issue speeding citations to minority drivers and charged 34% more expensive fines, unequivocally revealing bias.
Amazing to have access to that data. So many questions...
What's the variation in ticketing with respect to different police departments? How about geographic location?
What's the variation in ticketing with respect to different police departments? How about geographic location?
Teasing out that data is actually a more fruitful exercise. I don't mean to sound callous at all when I say this, but having a study that says "In the US blacks are discriminated against" is a bit lacking in new data or understanding. Any intellectually honest observer already knows they face discrimination.
> Any intellectually honest observer already knows they face discrimination.
Yep, but a significant percentage of the population are not honest observers. This is pretty hard to refute even for those that would normally attempt to hand wave the data away. This time those folks will have to get more creative.
Not surprising, however, something I'm curious about is how much of the effect is due to first order bias directly due to racial prejudice -- and how much of it is second order biases and miscommunications due to the inherent social tensions of a minority traffic stop in the US.
For sure, I am immediately privileged by my color when I am stopped by the police, but the social ease by which we communicate and interact during the stop also intuitively plays a role in whether I'll get off with a warning or not.
Although I guess it's probably a distinction without much of a practical difference.
> The largest-ever study of alleged racial profiling during traffic stops has found that blacks, who are pulled over more frequently than whites by day, are much less likely to be stopped after sunset, when “a veil of darkness” masks their race.
Very clever methodology on this one: they used Daylight Savings to rule out other variables.
> Next, they took advantage of the fact that, in the months before and after daylight saving time each year, the sky gets a little darker or lighter, day by day. Because they had such a massive database, the researchers were able to find 113,000 traffic stops, from all of the locations in their database, that occurred on those days, before or after clocks sprang forward or fell back, when the sky was growing darker or lighter at around 7 p.m. local time.
> This dataset provided a statistically valid sample with two important variables — the race of the driver being stopped, and the darkness of the sky at around 7 p.m. The analysis left no doubt that the darker it got, the less likely it became that a black driver would be stopped. The reverse was true when the sky was lighter.
Well yes, clearly the difference in the reason for initiating two otherwise equal stops can only be due to appearance.
I was questioning whether there are differences in interactions during the stop, because police have a lot of discretion in whether or not to issue a ticket.
As a Black person, I don't much see a large difference between the two things you mentioned?
Which is to say, it's certainly convenient to think that racism works like "there are racist cops on one hand and innocent well-meaning cops on the other," but that strikes me as an unhelpful oversimplification.
More specifically, I generally believe that most negative effects of racism come from folks who don't much realize how racist they are.
Yeah I’d agree that definitely sounds like an oversimplification.
I’m more wondering if there is a sort of social bias that isn’t directly race related. More of a socioeconomic or cultural thing.
I could certainly imagine a cop treating someone in a pickup truck wearing a cowboy hat differently than the same person in a Nissan Altima with chrome wheels playing rap music. Or treating people differently based on how they speak during a traffic stop.
Ultimately I understand there are deep links between culture, socioeconomics, and race, but I’d be interested to know more specifically which of those is more closely linked to this bias.
Putting race aside for a moment - I completely agree, my experience (though not a huge sample set) is that most officers get to your car expecting confrontation, and when they don’t get it end up just issuing a warning / writing a less severe ticket. Given that it’s easy to get out of a ticket afterwards, why argue it on the side of the road?
It would also be interesting to see reporting on officer's perception of the offenders. Are we seeing the results of "passing the attitude test"?
Then it would be interesting to study if identical actions of racially diverse drivers are perceived differently (i.e. if the same actions are perceived as polite with one race, confrontational with another).
Can you clarify how it is easy to get out of a ticket afterwards?
In my experience from sitting in a traffic court a couple times (in Washington state), the only people who get out of a ticket are those who have squeaky clean driving records for 10+ years, and those who have lawyers. But most people can't afford lawyers for traffic violations.
>how much of the effect is due to first order bias directly due to racial prejudice -- and how much of it is second order biases and miscommunications due to the inherent social tensions of a minority traffic stop in the US.
To me, this sounds like the difference between individual (your "first order") and systemic racism (your "second order'), which is pretty well studied. Some people only choose to recognize the existence of the former.
A black friend of mine gets stopped constantly. He is highly educated (well beyond a bachelors degree) in a stem field. He dresses professionally. He drives cautiously and does not speed. He once joked he does not feel as bad getting stopped at night because it is less likely racial profiling.
This seems like the kind of research that would invite retaliation from the current American administration. I hope none of the authors are visa holders.
I wonder why the downvotes. I assume people believe this comment is overly sarcastic... but is it? The absurdity of what the administration is doing automatically makes this comment a legitimate one, and not a troll.
> our findings suggest that compared with enforcement by police officers, appropriately located automated technologies, such as speeding cameras, could help reduce selective enforcement of traffic violations.
Every stoplight should be a speeding, red-light running, and missing tags enforcement camera.
Tesco self-checkout already has facial recognition connected to other local stores (including those of other major supermarkets), so this probably isn't needed.
If you were stupid enough to steal a pack of gum (some of my family are) you'll quickly find iyou're unable to buy groceries from any store in your area [1].
I don’t like the authoritarian-sounding phrasing here, but upon consideration, would this method of enforcing traffic laws really be much worse than having people with guns chasing people down at high speeds?
1. Where to put them? In Chicago these cameras unfortunately end up being a regressive tax.
2. What to do with the money? Anytime we give the government money from things like this, we create weird incentives. I've been wondering lately what it would be like if we required all the fees to be returned to the federal treasury / burned... no incentives!
> 1. Where to put them? In Chicago these cameras unfortunately end up being a regressive tax.
Everywhere. Starting with highest volume intersections.
> 2. What to do with the money? Anytime we give the government money from things like this, we create weird incentives.
Good concerns to have. I'm less concerned with bad incentives (e.g. vs. civil asset "forfeiture") because the enforcement is automated. There can still be bias in roll-out of the cameras, but this wouldn't be the same degree.
> I've been wondering lately what it would be like if we required all the fees to be returned to the federal treasury / burned... no incentives!
I like that thinking. This makes everyone's money worth ever so slightly more. (which is also minusculey regressive)
My understanding is that this sort of rear-end crash generally tapers off as a sufficient number of local drivers become accustomed to driving safely instead of racing to make it through a yellow light.
But even if it doesn't, it might still be a reasonable tradeoff. A higher number of minor rear-end crashes (typically between unsafe drivers) might be acceptable if it helps to reduce more t-bone crashes that are more likely to be fatal.
No, if it increases the rate of rear end collisions, it means that drivers are unsafely following too close to react to the driver in front of them, behind the drivers that are planning to unsafely and illegally run the red light and then changing their mind late in reaction to the camera.
Everyone's phones already collect and sell this information. If it's useful, and the citizens vote for it, why shouldn't cities collect this data? It already happens on toll roads
Is that the term for a uniform, unbiased, automated enforcement of law?
Do we prefer that speeding should only be punished when the wrong kind of people do it? Perhaps encourage everyone to make a habit of breaking the law, so that we can use it against them when they say something we don't like?
That is positively shocking. Police who are already widely known to target minorities for criminal offenses also target them for minor traffic violations.
This analysis doesn't say whether minority drivers were more likely to be pulled over for traffic violations, only that they were more likely to be issued a citation and that those citations came with higher fines. I would guess a cop rarely knows the race of a speeding driver before pulling them over. The discrimination would happen either when deciding whether to issue a citation, or after looking up the driver's info on the police car.
When the police look up your info, do they see past citations? If so, it's a self-reinforcing cycle: people more likely to receive citations are more likely to have citations listed, and a cop who sees past citations might be less willing to let the driver off with a warning.
> our findings suggest that compared with enforcement by police officers, appropriately located automated technologies, such as speeding cameras, could help reduce selective enforcement of traffic violations
This seems to presume that automated enforcement replaces, rather than enabling departments to even more precisely focus, the selective human enforcement of traffic laws. Given the role of selective traffic enforcement as a conscious tool in generating contacts to look for non-traffic issues, rather than a product of mere implicit bias, I find it extremely unlikely that this would happen with any real-world police department.
Readit News
Amazing to have access to that data. So many questions...
What's the variation in ticketing with respect to different police departments? How about geographic location?
Teasing out that data is actually a more fruitful exercise. I don't mean to sound callous at all when I say this, but having a study that says "In the US blacks are discriminated against" is a bit lacking in new data or understanding. Any intellectually honest observer already knows they face discrimination.
Yep, but a significant percentage of the population are not honest observers. This is pretty hard to refute even for those that would normally attempt to hand wave the data away. This time those folks will have to get more creative.
For sure, I am immediately privileged by my color when I am stopped by the police, but the social ease by which we communicate and interact during the stop also intuitively plays a role in whether I'll get off with a warning or not.
Although I guess it's probably a distinction without much of a practical difference.
> The largest-ever study of alleged racial profiling during traffic stops has found that blacks, who are pulled over more frequently than whites by day, are much less likely to be stopped after sunset, when “a veil of darkness” masks their race.
Very clever methodology on this one: they used Daylight Savings to rule out other variables.
> Next, they took advantage of the fact that, in the months before and after daylight saving time each year, the sky gets a little darker or lighter, day by day. Because they had such a massive database, the researchers were able to find 113,000 traffic stops, from all of the locations in their database, that occurred on those days, before or after clocks sprang forward or fell back, when the sky was growing darker or lighter at around 7 p.m. local time.
> This dataset provided a statistically valid sample with two important variables — the race of the driver being stopped, and the darkness of the sky at around 7 p.m. The analysis left no doubt that the darker it got, the less likely it became that a black driver would be stopped. The reverse was true when the sky was lighter.
I was questioning whether there are differences in interactions during the stop, because police have a lot of discretion in whether or not to issue a ticket.
Which is to say, it's certainly convenient to think that racism works like "there are racist cops on one hand and innocent well-meaning cops on the other," but that strikes me as an unhelpful oversimplification.
More specifically, I generally believe that most negative effects of racism come from folks who don't much realize how racist they are.
I’m more wondering if there is a sort of social bias that isn’t directly race related. More of a socioeconomic or cultural thing.
I could certainly imagine a cop treating someone in a pickup truck wearing a cowboy hat differently than the same person in a Nissan Altima with chrome wheels playing rap music. Or treating people differently based on how they speak during a traffic stop.
Ultimately I understand there are deep links between culture, socioeconomics, and race, but I’d be interested to know more specifically which of those is more closely linked to this bias.
Then it would be interesting to study if identical actions of racially diverse drivers are perceived differently (i.e. if the same actions are perceived as polite with one race, confrontational with another).
In my experience from sitting in a traffic court a couple times (in Washington state), the only people who get out of a ticket are those who have squeaky clean driving records for 10+ years, and those who have lawyers. But most people can't afford lawyers for traffic violations.
To me, this sounds like the difference between individual (your "first order") and systemic racism (your "second order'), which is pretty well studied. Some people only choose to recognize the existence of the former.
Every stoplight should be a speeding, red-light running, and missing tags enforcement camera.
If you were stupid enough to steal a pack of gum (some of my family are) you'll quickly find iyou're unable to buy groceries from any store in your area [1].
[1] https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/blog/the-spectator-has-your-l...
Yes. People don't scale the way computers do.
1. Where to put them? In Chicago these cameras unfortunately end up being a regressive tax.
2. What to do with the money? Anytime we give the government money from things like this, we create weird incentives. I've been wondering lately what it would be like if we required all the fees to be returned to the federal treasury / burned... no incentives!
Everywhere. Starting with highest volume intersections.
> 2. What to do with the money? Anytime we give the government money from things like this, we create weird incentives.
Good concerns to have. I'm less concerned with bad incentives (e.g. vs. civil asset "forfeiture") because the enforcement is automated. There can still be bias in roll-out of the cameras, but this wouldn't be the same degree.
> I've been wondering lately what it would be like if we required all the fees to be returned to the federal treasury / burned... no incentives!
I like that thinking. This makes everyone's money worth ever so slightly more. (which is also minusculey regressive)
But even if it doesn't, it might still be a reasonable tradeoff. A higher number of minor rear-end crashes (typically between unsafe drivers) might be acceptable if it helps to reduce more t-bone crashes that are more likely to be fatal.
Unless you've seen data that says otherwise, I think this is the same.
Could it eventually lead to fascism? Maybe, but so could enforcing the law with fast cars and guns if we aren't careful.
Do we prefer that speeding should only be punished when the wrong kind of people do it? Perhaps encourage everyone to make a habit of breaking the law, so that we can use it against them when they say something we don't like?
When the police look up your info, do they see past citations? If so, it's a self-reinforcing cycle: people more likely to receive citations are more likely to have citations listed, and a cop who sees past citations might be less willing to let the driver off with a warning.
Deleted Comment
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...
This seems to presume that automated enforcement replaces, rather than enabling departments to even more precisely focus, the selective human enforcement of traffic laws. Given the role of selective traffic enforcement as a conscious tool in generating contacts to look for non-traffic issues, rather than a product of mere implicit bias, I find it extremely unlikely that this would happen with any real-world police department.