Concept

Traffic stop

Summary
A traffic stop, commonly referred to as being pulled over, is a temporary detention of a driver of a vehicle and its occupants by police to investigate a possible crime or minor violation of law. A traffic stop is usually considered to be a Terry stop and, as such, is a seizure by police; the standard set by the United States Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio regarding temporary detentions requires only reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime has occurred or is about to occur. Traffic stops can be initiated at any time during the detention and arrest process, ranging from stops prior to arrest or issuance of a ticket for violation based on probable cause. Traffic stops date to the 1920s. Traffic stops may be executed upon reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime has occurred, which can range from an observation of a possible equipment violation to suspicion of driving under the influence (DUI) based on driving behavior. In some jurisdictions, general roadblock checkpoints are applied for random checks of driver. A primary purpose of the traffic stop at this point is frequently to determine if the police have probable cause for arrest. At this stage, the police are not required to issue a Miranda warning, because a traffic stop prior to formal arrest is not considered to be custodial under Miranda, and will often ask questions intended to elicit the suspect to provide answers that may be used as evidence in the event of an arrest. Non-evidentiary testing falls under this stage because implied consent laws in the US generally do not apply to Preliminary Breath Test (PBT) testing (small handheld devices, as opposed to evidential breath test devices). (For some violations, such as refusals by commercial drivers or by drivers under 21 years of age, some US jurisdictions may impose implied consent consequences for a PBT refusal, but these are generally not considered to be a refusals under the general "implied consent" laws.) Participation in "field sobriety tests" (FSTs or SFSTs) is voluntary in the U.S..
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