Why Traffic Stops Are One of the Most Dangerous Parts of Policing

When bringing up the topic of what the most dangerous aspects of policing would be, some might speculate on the obvious high-risk scenarios, such as confronting an armed subject or responding to a domestic incident. While the aforementioned situations are indeed dangerous scenarios, the risks associated with those calls are obvious to responding officers, whereas traffic stops are a whole different breed of uncertainty.

In the world of traffic stops, whether initiated for civil or criminal enforcement purposes, the level of unpredictability and fluidity of these interactions can result in fatal consequences for the officers involved.

When it comes to assessing the risks associated with approaching a motorist during a stop, the only information an officer has is the context of the stop itself and what information comes back from dispatch when running a plate. In cases where it’s a felony stop, the officer will at least be cognizant that the motorist behind the wheel could pose a threat, thereby heightening a sense of situational awareness.

But sometimes, non-felony stops can turn deadly even when the driver behind the wheel seemingly has zero reason to attack police, such as in the 2014 case out of Arizona, where a DUI stop resulted in an officer being gunned down. The driver, Elijah Arthur, was pulled over for a suspected DUI and, without warning, shot Salt River Police Officer Jair Cabrera in the head while the officer was still seated in his cruiser. At the time of the stop, Arthur had zero warrants or a violent criminal history.

In cases where officers are dealing with a compliant motorist, therein lies the unpredictability of the passengers inside the stopped vehicle, such as the case of Kentucky State Police Officer Jude Remilien, who was non-fatally shot during a stop in July 2025. An unidentified driver was pulled over by Officer Remilien near the Blue Grass Airport, who said the driver happened to be giving a friend, Guy House, a seemingly innocuous ride.

Bodycam footage of the incident showed House produce a firearm and shoot Officer Remilien, with the driver being forced out of the vehicle by the gunman, who then stole his truck and carried out a shooting rampage at an area church, killing two women, before being gunned down by police.

Even in cases where a stopped motorist is serving as the ideal subject of a traffic stop insofar as complying with requested documents and lawful orders, the cordial nature of a detained motorist bears zero influence on the hazardous conditions outside their vehicle, i.e., weather or traffic conditions, and potentially distracted or impaired motorists.

Retired West Virginia State Trooper Philip Wright noted in a 2014 report regarding accidental deaths of police officers that “Another leading reason officers are accidentally killed each year is from being struck by a vehicle, either while directing traffic, assisting motorists, making traffic stops, or participating in a roadblock.”

Perhaps one of the greatest summaries regarding the dangers associated with traffic stops was articulated by Ken Jefferson, who serves as the crime and safety expert for the news outlet News4Jax.

“Anytime you get involved in a traffic stop, the officer is walking into unknown danger. They don’t know the state of mind (of the driver). They just know they stopped them for a specific reason - running a stop sign or a traffic light. That’s all they know at the time, when they call it in, if the car is not stolen, they are treating it like a regular traffic stop,” Jefferson emphasized.

In the world of traffic stops, there are typically more unknown variables at play than ones known – and while Mark Twain’s famous aphorism “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so,” bears relevance in the world of incorrect assumptions, it’s what an officer doesn’t know that presents the most danger during traffic stops.