THE PERILS OF DRIVING WHILE BLACK

Police Searched Only 3.6 Percent Of White Drivers Pulled Over In
Traffic Stops, While They Searched 9.5 Percent Of African Americans Who
Obeyed The Flashing Lights And 8.8 Percent Of Hispanics

Washington -- This just in: Driving while black is still unsafe at any
speed, even zero miles per hour. The same goes for driving while brown.

The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report Sunday
showing that white, African American and Hispanic drivers are equally
likely to be pulled over by police for alleged traffic offenses. In
2005, the year covered by the study, black drivers were actually less
likely -- by a tiny margin -- to be stopped by police than were
drivers in other groups. You might be tempted to conclude that the
constitutional imperative of equal protection had finally been
extended to America's streets and highways.

But you would be wrong. The study reports that African American and
Hispanic drivers who are stopped by police are more than twice as
likely as whites to be searched. Specifically, police searched only
3.6 percent of white drivers pulled over in traffic stops, while they
searched 9.5 percent of African Americans who obeyed the flashing
lights and 8.8 percent of Hispanics.

African Americans have been putting up with the "driving while black"
thing for so long that we've become somewhat cynical. For example,
nearly three-quarters of whites and Hispanics who were pulled over for
allegedly running red lights or stop signs were willing to concede
that they had been caught dead to rights, while nearly half of African
Americans in that situation believed they had committed no infraction.
About 90 percent of white drivers pulled over for some sort of vehicle
defect, such as a busted taillight, thought the stop was legitimate,
as opposed to 67 percent of black drivers.

Think that's just paranoia? Then try to reconcile the counterintuitive
fact that while blacks are much more likely than whites to be arrested
in traffic stops, they are also more likely to be released with no
enforcement action, not even a warning. This looks to me like powerful
evidence that racial profiling is alive and well. It suggests there
was no good reason to stop those people.

Eugene Robinson's column is distributed by Washington Post Writer's
Group.