By Sean Lally, Staff Writer
A recent report written by the ACLU shows that black motorists in Florida are pulled over and cited for seat belt violations almost twice as often as white motorists. Statistics evince that even though African Americans make up 13.5% of Floridian drivers, they get 22% of the tickets, demonstrating that systemic racism is alive and well in the sunshine state.
Local Counties
The numbers are even more disturbing when looking at specific counties. In 2011, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office reported that black drivers were pulled over and cited four times more often than white motorists. And in 2014, Palm Beach County reported that African Americans were pulled over three times more often than white people. That same year, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office found that black motorists were given citations 2.8 times more often than white drivers.
Some might argue that there’s nothing abnormal about these numbers. According to a Florida Department of Transportation study, 85.8% of African American motorists wear their seat belt, compared to 91.5% of white motorists. Following these statistics, the ACLU has shown that it is still the case that black people should have received 20,000 fewer citations than they did in 2014.
The Data Problem
It doesn’t help that there’s a severe lack of data coming in from Florida police agencies. And it’s difficult to ignore the horrific backdrop to such a scenario, namely the current deficit of data pertaining to police killings across the country. In 2014, only 224 police agencies out of the potential 18,000 in the U.S. reported data associated with so-called “arrest-related deaths.” That means that nearly 99% of law enforcement agencies didn’t send in their data. With the passing of the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013, one hopes that real change is on its way, but it remains to be seen whether or not this new legislation will have serious effects in the near future.
Proposed Solutions
As it turns out, a law was passed in 2005 requiring Floridian police agencies to disclose the race and ethnicity of people who are cited for seat belt violations to the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. The result has been an utter lack of compliance, with only 147 out of 387 agencies sending in relevant data in 2014.
The ACLU proposes several measures to rectify this embarrassing failure. First, they recommend that legislation be passed that actually enforces data collection laws by penalizing agencies that fail to deliver the requisite information. Furthermore, they suggest that Florida police agencies build training programs with a focus on anti-bias policing practices; that they reeducate officers who have displayed racial biases in their police work; and that they gather and analyze data pertaining to traffic and pedestrian stops. We’ll have to wait and see if Florida heeds this call to action.
