> Such actions are most emphatically NOT pointless, they are preventative: informing someone that their bad behaviour is noticed is often enough to keep well-meaning citizens on the right side of the law.

The problem is selective enforcement. And let's face the truth: most laws are enforced only against minorities, or as someone else put it shortly:

> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

Hell, just look at the marijuana prohibition, it was explicitly done to be able to criminalize lefties and Black persons [1].

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-...

Isn’t that really just harassment and intimidation?

"Hey, your tail light is out. Won't give you a ticket this time, but please do get it fixed". Is neither harassement nor intimidation. But it does remind people that these things are noticed, and that failing to fix a taillight might actually earn you a fine.

Totally depends. It's easy to imagine a situation where responding to a noise complaint would ideally finish with a warning.

The data is specifically referring to officer initiated traffic stops. Noise complaints are often reported by neighbors and then responded to.

So cops are just stopping drivers and giving them warnings. It sounds like harassment to me.

in the case of a stop that quickly becomes a terry stop.

in the case of i stopped you because -rear lights, i see noone else has a notation on your marker, go get it repaired, right now...then your free to go,

thats how i generally see a traffic stop actually being a traffic stop.