A bill proposed Tuesday by At-Large Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando would curb police officers’ ability to stop drivers over minor traffic violations, an attempt to rectify the striking racial disparity in who officers decide to pull over.

In addition to banning stops over window tinting, defective headlamps and tail lights, illuminated license plates, certificates of title, and minor obstructions in windshields, the bill would greatly reduce officers’ ability to request a search of a vehicle, even if the driver consents. The county would join its neighbor, the state of Virginia, in enacting a reduced-stop policy.

In the bill’s introduction letter, Jawando cites a 2021 report from the county’s Office of Legislative Oversight, which found that traffic stops tend to occur more for technical violations than actual unsafe driving practices — and that Black and Latino drivers “are stopped and searched during traffic stops for other traffic violations at disproportionately higher rates compared to White drivers.”

“I think it’s a win-win to build community trust and also focus our police on the most urgent traffic safety and crime prevention issues,” Jawando told WUSA9, though Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones told the station he believes the proposed bill is “bad legislation and will make Montgomery County less safe.”

Multiple jurisdictions across the country have enacted similar policies, including Philadelphia, which banned stops over “secondary violations” in 2022. In Fayetteville, North Carolina, which passed a now-defunct policy prioritizing traffic stops for collision-related violations, analysts observed that the law led to a “decrease in traffic fatalities, use of force, and racial disparities.” Similarly, in Oakland, California, which de-prioritized traffic stops for violations least likely to contribute to collisions, racial disparities in stops “improved,” the OLO determined, though continue to persist.

Additional provisions of Jawando’s bill would require the county’s police chief to collect regular traffic stop data, including cataloguing the reason for each stop and complaints received “related to a biased stop.” The chief would have to report that data to the County Council and maintain a web database. Finally, the bill would ban stops for jaywalking.

A public hearing on the bill is slated for June 19, with a public safety meeting planned a month later.