In 2021, court watchers are paying increasing attention to how police use apparent equipment violations to pull over drivers—encounters that can quickly escalate. The Eighth Circuit recently affirmed the denial of a motion to suppress evidence obtained after a traffic stop that was ostensibly based on a crack in the windshield that did not go all the way across the windshield and did not obstruct the driver's view. Prosecutors successfully defended the traffic stop by reference to a state law against operating vehicles with a safety defect, even though the crack was not legally unsafe as the state's highest court had interpreted the law before the stop occurred.