I looked at traffic stops between 2005 and 2014 in Florida, because Florida has such comprehensive public records law. I looked at the incidents that resulted in violence and contacted law enforcement agencies to figure out what generally went down during each of these incidents. What I ended up finding was that the danger narrative about traffic stops that is commonly perpetuated in courts and law enforcement circles isn’t supported by empirical research. What I found is that overall, violence against officers during traffic stops was fairly infrequent and the incidents that did happen were generally low-risk and didn’t involve weapons. Using my most conservative estimates, I found that the rate for felonious killing of an officer during routine traffic stops was 1 in every 6.5 million stops. The rate for an assault resulting in serious injury to an officer was 1 in every 361,111 stops. The rate for assault against an officer, whether it results in injury or not, was 1 in every 6,959 stops. The least conservative estimates suggests that the rates are much less: 1 in every 27.6 million stops for a killing, 1 in every 1.53 million stops involving an assault that results in serious injury to an officer, and 1 in every 29,550 stops for an assault against an officer, whether it resulted in officer injury or not. The bottom line is the idea that routine traffic stops are these exceptionally dangerous for police didn’t pan out with my results.