Regular contributor Joe Cadillic has a guest column in the National Motorist Association newsletter that begins:
According to The Stanford Open Policing Project which looked at over 100 million police traffic stops in the United States, “Police pull over more than 50,000 drivers on a typical day, more than 20 million motorists every year.”
Does that mean 50,000 people are breaking the law every day? Is there an epidemic of lawbreakers on our streets? Of course not, so why are police stopping 20 million motorists every year? Police across the country don’t just ticket millions of Americans every year, they’re also questioning them.
Unfortunately the Open Policing Project doesn’t mention how many passengers are stopped and questioned by police every year. Many motorists travel with someone so the amount of people being stopped & questioned might be double than the estimated 20 million. The numbers become even more disturbing when the estimated 50,000 motorists stopped each day turns into a conservative estimate of 80,000 or more motorists plus passengers stopped each day.
Read more on Motorists.org.