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hirundo82 wrote:

srothstein wrote:The point you might have missed (and it is not commonly understood or accepted) is that a frisk of the car is justified by the same grounds as the frisk of the person. The justification does not disappear when the driver exits the car. SCOTUS recognized that I have to get the driver out of the car to search it, so I must still be allowed to do the search even if the driver has left the car. So, even if the driver leaves the car on his own, I can still do the frisk of the car if it was justified at the time of the person getting out of the car.

I guess what is confusing me is that the frisk prusuant to a Terry stop is justified on grounds of officer safety. Removing the person from the the vehicle and searching their person ensures that they do not have access to any weapons during the stop which may be a threat to the officer. I fail to see how searching the car as well makes the officer any safer.