Are blacks egregious speeding violators at extraordinary rates in New Jersey?†

In 1996, a New Jersey Court found that the New Jersey State Police engaged in targeting black motorists on the New Jersey Turnpike (NJT), intensifying the debate around racial profiling. Two recent articles have claimed that the standard of comparison for determining racial profiling was incorrect because either the measurements utilized to make that determination or the standard used in Soto were wrong. The present article concludes that the measures used in the Soto case were valid and reliable. It presents two experiments that show that the suggestion that blacks are stopped at about the...

In 1996, a New Jersey Court found that the New Jersey State Police engaged in targeting black motorists on the New Jersey Turnpike (NJT), intensifying the debate around racial profiling. Two recent articles have claimed that the standard of comparison for determining racial profiling was incorrect because either the measurements utilized to make that determination or the standard used in Soto were wrong. The present article concludes that the measures used in the Soto case were valid and reliable. It presents two experiments that show that the suggestion that blacks are stopped at about the correct rate on the NJT because they egregiously violate speed laws much more frequently than do whites is erroneous. The data are consistent with the use of racially informed traffic stops as a pretext for drug searches on the southern end of NJT.