Executive summary:

In cities around the United States, racial disparities have been identified in police stops and infractions issued to people riding bicycles, with minority individuals and communities receiving tickets at disproportionate rates. Here we examine racial disparities in citations received by cyclists in Seattle, WA using court records of 2,962 bicycle-related infractions from 2003-2020, a partial subset of the approximately 6,000 infractions issued to cyclists over that period. 1,667 (56%) of all infractions examined were issued for violating the King County all-ages bicycle helmet law, which was extended to include Seattle in 2003. We assess that a decreasing rate of bicycle citation issuance (including helmet infractions) from 2012-2020 is most likely unrelated to the advent of station-based and dockless bike share systems in Seattle, the latter of which has not provided helmets to riders.

In contrast to most previous examinations of racial disparities in police stops of cyclists from other cities, we estimate the demographic distribution of cyclists in Seattle on an approximate per-trip basis to compare directly with the infraction records. These estimates are constructed using data from three population surveys of Seattle residents using statistical weighting and compositing techniques. We find that Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Native American/Alaska Native cyclists in Seattle are all underrepresented to varying degrees when compared to their census distributions, while white cyclists are overrepresented on the streets of Seattle.

Comparison of court records with our frequency-weighted estimates of Seattle cyclists reveals severe racial disparities in rates of citation issuance by Seattle police from 2003-2020. Black cyclists receive bicycle-related infractions at a rate 3.3 times higher than white cyclists (3.8 for specifically helmet infractions) and Native American/Alaska Native cyclists at a rate 1.7 times higher (2.2 for helmet infractions), while Asian/Pacific Islander cyclists receive infractions at rates 9 times lower (10 times lower for helmet infractions) than for white cyclists. We compare these racial disparities with those identified in other cities, and discuss opportunities for future investigation.