Flashing lights in the rearview mirror and the whine of a siren are almost never welcome. They are, at best, the beginning of an irritating delay and frequently the herald of a pricey citation.

But they can also lead to more tense situations. Viral videos of traffic stops that turned deadly for a driver or passenger are sadly common.

Police officers also take a risk in those simple engagements. Of 48 officers killed in the line of duty in 2019, six were slain during traffic stops.

So it may make sense for police departments to review what merits pulling a car over. On Monday, Pittsburgh City Councilman Ricky Burgess introduced legislation that would preclude an officer from pulling someone over for a simple secondary violation. The move came a week after Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney issued an executive order implementing his city’s Driving Equality Bill, directing the same thing.

The safety of the people and police should always be considered, and cutting back on practices that some say can be excuses for racial profiling could help defuse unease between communities of color and law enforcement — maybe.

But is that ultimately safer?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, a traffic stop is the most common police-initiated interaction anyone has with an officer. In 2018, of 61 million interactions, 45% began with police taking action and of that 28 million, 24.3 million were traffic stops.

Most of those end with a ticket or warning. Sometimes there is a summary or misdemeanor charge for something like possession of a controlled substance. But sometimes it is more.

The largest fentanyl seizure in Western Pennsylvania came during a traffic stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and that’s not an uncommon story. Many huge stores of drugs stashed in cars and trucks are discovered in traffic stops.

And because people who commit crimes of one kind often don’t care about other rules, that’s not the only kind of criminal picked up for something mundane. Serial killer Ted Bundy was arrested after traffic stops three times — twice after escapes. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was caught because of a license plate stop.

So does this seem like a slide into anarchy? Not necessarily.

Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are talking about not pulling people over for secondary offenses. Those are the kinds of things for which people are already not supposed to be stopped. You can get a ticket for a seat belt violation but only if you were already stopped for speeding, for example.

It seems likely that drug traffickers and other law breakers will still not signal properly when changing lanes or roll through stop signs, so while announcements like this gain plenty of attention, they shouldn’t change how stops are made. If they do? Well, then that points to a problem.

— The Tribune-Review, Greensburg