Traffic policing" redirects here. For the process used in communications networks, see Traffic policing (communications).
This article is about police officers. For the Iraqi football club that once played under the name 'Traffic Police', see Al-Shorta SC.
Azerbaijani traffic police car BMW 3 series in Baku
A 2015 Ford Tourneo Courier police car of General Directorate of Security, Turkey
Officers of the Bangalore City Traffic Police in the standard white uniform seen across India
Indonesian traffic police officers
Traffic police or traffic officers,[1] often referred to colloquially as traffic cops, are police officers who usually wear a white hat and direct traffic or serve in a traffic or roads policing unit enforcing rules of the road. Traffic police include officers who patrol major roads and also police who address traffic infractions on other roads. It has been noted that:
...traffic police, who are regarded as peripheral to most police forces, participate in both authoritative intervention and symbolic justice. Perhaps alone of all the assignments, traffic police are full-service police. They are different from the rest, however, because their work is limited to a particular venue — namely, public thoroughfares — and to particular people — namely, those who operate motor vehicles. But in terms of work, traffic police are detectives as well as patrol officers.[2]
Typical traffic enforcement tools in the United States
Road traffic began to increase in volume and speed during the eighteenth century, and the above mix of practices led to a clear need for some legal rule-making. In response, in 1722 the lord mayor of London appointed three men to ensure that traffic kept to the left and did not stop on London Bridge. They were possibly the world's first traffic police.[3]
