The "Investing in Safer Traffic Stops Act of 2025" establishes a grant program to fund local, State, and Tribal governments to enforce traffic violations with civilians or traffic monitoring technology instead of law enforcement officers.
Ritchie Torres
Representative
NY-15
The "Investing in Safer Traffic Stops Act of 2025" aims to improve traffic stop safety by establishing a grant program. This program, managed by the Attorney General, will provide funding to local, State, and Tribal governments to facilitate the enforcement of traffic violations by civilians or traffic monitoring technology rather than law enforcement officers. The goal is to reduce interactions between law enforcement and the public during routine traffic stops, potentially minimizing escalations and promoting safer outcomes. The act authorizes $100 million in funding annually from 2026 to 2031 to support these initiatives.
Feds Offer $100M Annually to Replace Cops with Civilians or Tech for Traffic Stops, Starting 2026
The "Investing in Safer Traffic Stops Act of 2025" sets up a grant program, kicking off within 180 days of enactment, that funds state, local, and tribal governments to shift traffic enforcement away from sworn law enforcement officers. Instead, these entities can use civilians or technology to handle traffic violations. The feds are putting serious money behind this: $100,000,000 each year from 2026 through 2031 (SEC. 2).
Re-envisioning Traffic Stops
The core idea is to change who enforces traffic laws. Instead of police officers, the bill allows for the hiring of "civilians"—defined as non-law enforcement employees of a local, state, or tribal government—or the purchase of traffic monitoring technology (SEC. 2). Think red light cameras, speed cameras, or potentially even new tech we haven't seen widely deployed yet. This could mean your next speeding ticket comes from a camera or a city employee, not a uniformed officer.
Real-World Rollout
Imagine a city using this grant to install automated speed enforcement in school zones. Instead of a patrol car pulling you over, you get a ticket in the mail. Or picture a small town hiring a civilian traffic monitor to handle parking violations, freeing up police officers to focus on other calls. A tribal government might use the funds to upgrade their traffic monitoring systems on reservation roads, improving safety without increasing the number of potentially tense encounters between tribal members and law enforcement. These are the kinds of shifts this bill aims to enable.
The Trade-Offs
While the bill intends to make traffic stops safer and potentially less biased, there are some real-world wrinkles to consider. For example, what kind of training will these civilian enforcers receive? Will they have the same authority as a police officer? The bill doesn't spell out all those details, leaving it up to the Attorney General to establish the program's specifics (SEC. 2). There's also the question of job displacement for existing law enforcement officers if traffic enforcement is increasingly handled by civilians or technology. On the tech side, while cameras can reduce face-to-face interactions, there are privacy concerns about increased surveillance and how that data is stored and used.
The Bigger Picture
This bill represents a significant potential shift in how traffic laws are enforced across the country. It touches on issues of law enforcement reform, government spending, and the increasing role of technology in our daily lives. It also fits into a broader conversation about how to improve community-police relations and reduce bias in the justice system. Whether it achieves those goals in practice will depend on how states, cities, and tribes choose to implement these changes, and how effectively the program is overseen at the federal level.