In compliance with Maryland law 25-113 - which requires data collection on every law-eligible traffic stop in the State - this report presents aggregate data on all law-eligible traffic stops in Maryland during calendar year 2012.
During 2012, Maryland law enforcement agencies reported 96,138 law-eligible traffic stops. Information on the race/ethnicity of the involved drivers was missing in 705 cases, and race/ethnicity could not be correctly classified in 5,735 traffic stops. For the stops in which the race/ethnicity of the driver was reported, 48.6 percent involved Caucasian drivers and 39.3 percent involved African-American drivers. Data on drivers' gender indicated that 63.5 percent were male, and 34.9 percent were female. Gender data were not recorded for 1.6 percent of the traffic stops. African-American males were most often stopped for a registration violation. Males of every race/ethnicity were least likely to be stopped for the operation of a motorcycle or the operation of vehicles on certain toll facilities. Of all races/ethnicities, Caucasian females were stopped more often for an issue with vehicle equipment. African-American females were stopped most frequently for registration violations. Approximately 1.0 percent of stops involved vehicle searches. The two most common search reasons were the giving of consent by the driver or a search that was conducted incident to arrest for males and probable cause established by an officer and a search incident to arrest for females. On average, female drivers received more warnings and were less likely to receive citations than males across all races/ethnicities. Caucasian males were the most likely to be arrested after a traffic stop, followed closely by African-Americans. The majority of all arrests during traffic stops were based on the initial reason for the stop. 22 charts and 18 tables