Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom

History of how the automobile helped create modern policing and modern criminal procedure law. The perceived uncontrollability of auto-enabled drivers—including a lot of white people, though of course race was always a factor in who got policed—drove an expansion in police forces, expansion in the number of laws governing cars, and expansion in the things that police were allowed to do to drivers. A little repetitive, and would have been aided by more comparisons with other countries to get a sense of how uniquely American the story was, but also full of connections that, while often obvious once stated, need to be stated. A particular favorite: the early argument that autos were so heavily regulated, and of such great importance to show more the public, that they could be forfeited freely for auto-related crime because they were essentially already the state’s property. show less

A thorough and insightful analysis about how the advent of the automobile drove ambiguity into traditional privacy rights, resulting in a more expansive role for law enforcement and further disparity in the treatment of minorities and the poor