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How the rise of the car, the symbol of American personal freedom, led to ever more intrusive policing—with disastrous consequences for racial equality in our criminal justice system.

reviewed

The New Yorker, “What We’re Reading in the Summer of 2019,” by Hua Hsu

The New Yorker, “Was the Automobile Era a Terrible Mistake?” by Nathan Heller

The New Rambler, “A Century of Cars Driving the Fourth Amendment,” by Emily A. Profigle

Cato Unbound, “Race, Traffic Stops, and Whren vs. United States,” by Clark Neily

Cato Unbound, “Reaching the Same Destination on Foot,” by Lars Trautman

Cato Unbound, “Courtesy for Some, Misdemeanors for Others,” by John Pfaff

Public Books, “Why Do Police Drive Cars?” by Jackson Smith

Smithsonian Magazine, “The Ten Best History Books of 2019,” by Angela Serratore

The Key Reporter, review by Allen D. Boyer

Boston University Law Review, “Cops and Cars: How the Automobile Drove Fourth Amendment Law,” by Tracey Maclin

Liberal Currents, “Driving, Police Power, and the Word: Sarah A. Seo’s Policing the Open Road,” by Adam Gurri

Issues in Science and Technology, “License and Registration, Please,” by Stephanie Wykstra

Urban Omnibus, “Driving Opportunity,” by Eric Goldwyn

podcasted

Freakonomics, “What Are the Police For, Anyway?”

99% Invisible, “Policing the Open Road”

Hi-Phi Nation, a podcast from Slate, “Police Discretion”

Deep Background with Noah Feldman, “The History of Policing in Cars”

Le Monde Diplomatique podcast, “Americans, Their Cars and the Law”

War on Cars, “The Automotive Police State”

Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast about Early American History, “Interpreting the Fourth Amendment”

Majority Report with Sam Seder, “Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom with Sarah Seo”

Cited

United States v. Weaver, No. 18-1697-cr (2d Cir. Aug. 16, 2021) (en banc) (Calabresi, J., dissenting)

United States v. Weaver, 975 F.3d 94 (2d Cir. Sept. 15, 2020)

United States v. Walker, 965 F.3d 180 (2d Cir. July 14, 2020)

United States v. Wallace, 937 F.3d 130 (2d Cir. Sept. 3, 2019) (Pooler, J., dissenting)

excerpted

Medium, “The Long History of Police Abuse on the Road,” July 27, 2020

Boston Review, “How Cars Transformed Policing,” June 3, 2019

Lapham’s Quarterly, “The Need for Speed Limits,” April 9, 2019

blurbed

“A brilliant and groundbreaking book that will fundamentally reshape the way we think about the police, criminal procedure, and American freedom.”
— Bernard E. Harcourt, author of The Counterrevolution

“How have we gone without this book for so long?”
― John Fabian Witt, Yale Law School

“Careful scholarship is rarely so absorbing and so essential.”

― Paul Butler, author of Chokehold

“With this sweeping, smart, and stimulating account, Seo has accomplished that most coveted of historian’s aspirations: enabling her readers to see through a new lens not only the past but the present and future as well.”

― Risa Goluboff, author of Vagrant Nation

“Policing the Open Road is a fresh and revelatory work of cultural history as well as a major contribution to scholarship on policing and criminal procedure.”

― David Alan Sklansky, Stanford Law School

“With vivid prose and a lovely sense of detail and personalities, Seo tells how, from the dawn of the automotive age to the 2015 death of Sandra Bland, cars and interactions with drivers shaped the rules governing policing―not just on the road but everywhere.”

― Daniel Richman, Columbia Law School