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I beg to disagree. Probable cause is necessary for any traffic stop. This is clearly seen in SCOTUS and TX Court of Criminal Appeals rulings. A traffic stop is an arrest, as defined by the CCA in the Kurtz decision of 2004. As such, probable cause is clearly necessary for the stop. SCOTUS ruled last year that even the passenger can question the probable cause for the stop since event he passenger would feel they were not free to leave, thus meeting the legal definition of an arrest. If an officer does not need probable cause, just suspicion, how can a passenger question the probable cause?

Many people, including officers, think a traffic stop does not need more than suspicion. But when they talk amongst themselves, they will even ask what the PC for the stop was. Yes, this may be slang and really mean they want to know why the stop was made, but the slang indicates that the basic rule is probable cause. The officers who feel they can stop for reasonable suspicion are wrong and will get eaten alive in court if they try to use that and find something worse. Many of the court cases on crimes and searches start with asking what the officer's probable cause for a stop is.

As just one example of how you need probable cause, ask any officer how they were taught to testify about radar use. First they saw the car approaching at what appeared to be a high rate of speed. This is the probable cause for the search by means of the radar gun that they used to determine the car's speed. This is then the probable cause for the stop. I know that a lot of cops do not actually do things this way, but they were taught to and will probably still testify that way, even if they had the radar running and it beeped at the speed higher than the target, causing them to look up to see which car was speeding.

A traffic stop is an arrest (in Texas) and needs probable cause. The officer must be able to articulate what facts and circumstances led him, as a reasonable person, to believe that a crime was being committed.