Motor Vehicle Stops

Motor vehicle stops seem to be taken for granted day in and day out by college students on various campuses across the country. They are taken really seriously by police officers on college campuses, city streets, and even highways. College students these days feel as if the cops are just trying to ruin their fun or pull them over because they have nothing better to do. They don’t want to be pulled over that little bit of alcohol that pushed them a little or even double the legal blood alcohol limit of their state. However, most of these stops could be the key to saving someone’s life and keeping our college campuses safe.
Here at WNE, our officers take very good pride in the motor vehicle stops that they do throughout the school year. Just
SWITRS is a statewide repository of reported traffic collision data collected by the California Highway Patrol. It includes information about the date, time, location, and type of collision; age and gender of the driver and the victim(s); primary cause of collision; whether alcohol was involved; and the extent of injuries. SWITRS data provided useful information primarily for crashes on the campus peripheries. For information about campus crashes, we turned to the campus police units. However, we found that the number of reported crashes was extremely small. For example, the UCLA Police Department had on record only 15 crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists between 2009 and 2012” (Loukaitou-Sideris, Medury, Fink, Grembek, Shafizadeh, Wong, and Orrick
Dubose, Tensing who was an officer at the University of Cincinnati shot Mr. Dubose after a traffic stop for an alleged missing license plate turned south. Harvard Law Review asserts, “After DuBose was unable to produce his driver’s license, Tensing directed him to remove his seatbelt and tried to open DuBose’s driver’s side car door. “I didn’t even do nothing,” DuBose protested, as he held his door closed and turned the key to his car’s ignition. Yelling for DuBose to stop, Tensing reached for him with one hand and his service weapon with the other. He then fired one shot — killing DuBose instantly. Although Tensing claimed that he discharged his weapon only after being dragged by DuBose’s vehicle, his body camera footage plainly contradicted his account” (Harvard Law Review 1168). Officer Tensing probably did not follow the proper protocol for a motor vehicle stop which is probably why Mr. DuBose tried to drive away and his hand got trapped. He then tried to lie about what happened when he knew that he was being recorded at all times as a safety protocol. Officers on college campuses are allowed in certain states to make traffic stops and arrests on our near their campuses. North Carolina happens to be one of those