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"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.

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.

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.