HOW & WHERE TO STOP 

Traffic stops are essential to effective traffic law enforcement. But stopping on or near the roadway is one of the most dangerous facets of police work. Stress to the drivers in your family the importance of selecting a safe location at which to make a stop should be pulledpolicefd7.jpg over. Ideally motorist should pull over as soon as possible, yet as far away from traffic as codintions permit. Driveways, parking lots, rest areas, pulloffs, and other areas beyond the right shoulder should be used whenever available.*

*IACP Highway Safety Committee

 

CONSIDERATIONS FOR LAW ENFORCERS

All agencies studied stress the importance of selecting a safe location at which to make a stop. The exact location is influenced by numerous conditions, such as:

  • terrain
  • traffic volume and congestion
  • visibility and sight distance
  • available protection
  • weather conditions
  • violation severity
  • violator behavior.

Most agencies recommend stopping police vehicles 10-15 feet behind the violators’ vehicles. As a matter of fact, for a right shoulder stop, the Arizona CVPI Blue Ribbon Panel and the New York State Police both recommend allowing 15 feet between the police and violator’s vehicles, parking the police vehicle parallel to the roadway, offsetting the police vehicle 50 percent of its width to the left of the violator’s, and turning its wheels to the right.

 
IN OR OUT?

Some agencies expect violators to remain inside their vehicles, while others prefer that violators stand with officers. In all cases, however, officers and violators should avoid standing directly between vehicles. This procedure, however, creates difficulties for departments using in-car video cameras to record traffic stops, especially the administration of standard field sobriety tests in connection with suspected DUI stops.

Certain philosophical differences also exist between these agencies’ policies and procedures in terms of police vehicle placement and orientation: distance between vehicles, setting the parking brake, wheel alignment (front wheels turned left or right), vehicle offset, approaching the violator’s vehicle (driver or passenger side), and in-vehicle citation writing.

The blue ribbon panel conducted a national survey in 2002 and found that 75 percent of officers parked their police vehicles offset left of the violators’ vehicles, that 72.5 percent of them parked behind the violators’ vehicles, that 65 percent of them approached stopped vehicles on the driver’s side, and that 46.2 percent of them reported turning their vehicles’ front wheels to the left when stopped on the right shoulder.

Some experts suggest that officers minimize their exposure to passing traffic, as well as their time in cruisers, and prepare citations and other documents outside their vehicles whenever feasible. It has also been recommended that traffic stops take place as far away from traffic as possible; and that driveways, parking lots, rest areas, pulloffs, and other areas beyond the right shoulder be used whenever available.