Have you ever let your car registration or inspection sticker lapse? Maybe the light on your license plate is out. Or even worse. You're driving around without wearing your seat belt.

These are all considered minor offenses and a new bill in the Maine Legislature seeks to ban police from pulling over a driver for these violations. 

According to News Center Maine, the bill is sponsored by Rep. Victoria Morales of South Portland. The purpose of the bill is to help reduce racial profiling by police in Maine. The thought here is that banning police from making traffic stops that are for minor offenses like an expired plate or inspection sticker would keep those stops from becoming an investigation into something that could be a more serious infraction.

You've likely seen in all sorts of TV shows, movies and reality shows like Cops, where a driver is pulled over for a light out on their car and it progresses to finding the driver guilty of something beyond that like possession of drugs.

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Sure, racial profiling is something that should be stopped in its tracks, but some question if this is the way to do it. Police, the Maine Medical Association and the Maine Bureau of Highway Safety are all opposed to it.

According to the Portland Press Herald, the Maine State Police told them that many driving arrests come after the driver is stopped for a minor violation.

In my humble opinion, I'm all for helping to protect drivers from racial profiling, but there has to be a better way than this. As minor as a light out or an expired plate is, it sounds like these kinds of stops can lead to the discovery of other things that are much more dangerous to the public.

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