This appeal presents the question of whether the State is bound by the reasons an officer gives to justify a stop under
Tern/ v. Ohio,
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
On the evening of August 29, 1997, the Black Hawk County Sheriffs Office was conducting a traffic safety enforcement roadblock on Gilbertville Road at approximately 500 feet from the intersection of Plaza and Gilbertville Road. Plaza runs north and south. Gilbertville Road runs east and west.
At approximately 9 p.m., Keith Hemin-over was driving his van in a southerly direction on Plaza and turned west onto Gilbertville Road. At the time, Hemin-over’s two minor sons were in the vehicle with him. When he was approximately 150 feet from the roadblock, Heminover stopped his vehicle. Deputy sheriff Ben Ramirez waived his flashlight at Hemin-over, directing him to move forward and pull over. At that point, Heminover placed his van in reverse, backed into the intersection of Plaza and Gilbertville Road, and drove south on Plaza away from the roadblock.
Ramirez followed Heminover in his patrol car and pulled him over. After stopping Heminover, Ramirez noticed that He-minover smelled of alcohol. The deputy asked Heminover if he had been drinking, and Heminover replied that he had consumed a few beers. Ramirez then asked Heminover to submit to a roadside sobriety test, to which Heminover agreed. Ramirez conducted a horizontal nystagmus test on Heminover, which Heminover failed. During the test, Heminover was swaying side to side and front to back. Heminover refused Ramirez’s request to take a preliminary breath test, after which the deputy arrested him for operating while intoxicated.
The State charged Heminover with (1) OWI in violation of Iowa Code section 321J.2 (1997), (2) two aggravated misdemeanor counts of child endangerment in violation of Iowa Code section 726.6(l)(a), and (3) one simple misdemeanor count of failure to obey a police officer in violation of Iowa Code section 321.229. The State later amended the trial information to elevate the OWI charge to a second offense.
Heminover moved to suppress any evidence regarding (1) the field sobriety tests, (2) comments about drinking, and (3) drinking prior to the field sobriety tests. Later, Heminover amended his motion, asserting that because the safety inspection roadblock was illegal from its inception, any evidence gathered or observed after Heminover encountered the roadblock was illegally seized and should be suppressed.
Following a hearing on the motion to suppress, district associate judge J.G. Johnson denied the motion. The court concluded that the roadblock safety check violated Iowa Code section 312K.1(2) because there was no evidence showing that (1) the roadblock was authorized by “policy-making administrative officers of the law enforcement agency” and (2) there were “advance warning signs ... erected to provide timely information to approaching motorists of the roadblock and its nature.” On this basis, the court concluded Ramirez was not authorized to stop He-minover. The court further concluded that Heminover’s failure to obey Ramirez’s *356 signals was not a violation of the law and did not create reasonable cause for the deputy to stop him.
Additionally, the court concluded that turning away from a roadblock does not alone constitute reasonable cause to stop a vehicle. Nevertheless, the court concluded that, in backing away from the roadblock and resuming travel in a different direction, Heminover violated state law. Citing this violation, the court concluded there was reasonable cause for Ramirez to pursue Heminover and make the initial stop.
Later, in a trial based on stipulated minutes, district associate judge James Moot-hart found Heminover guilty of all charges. District judge James C. Bauch entered judgment and sentence. Hemin-over appealed, and we transferred the case to the court of appeals. The court of appeals reversed the convictions.
We granted the State’s application for further review. The sole issue is whether the district court correctly determined there was reasonable cause for Ramirez to stop Heminover’s vehicle.
In his appeal, Heminover presents two arguments in support of his position that the evidence gathered, after the stop, was illegally obtained. First, he contends the roadblock was illegal. The State concedes the roadblock was illegal, so we give that contention no further consideration. Second, he contends that his conduct in backing up near the roadblock did not constitute reasonable cause for the stop.
Heminover’s second contention raises a constitutional issue under the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. We review de novo the ultimate conclusion reached by the district court on a motion to suppress.
See Ornelas v. United States,
II. Reasonable Cause for the Stop.
On this issue, the district court concluded that, in backing away from the roadblock and resuming travel in a different direction, Heminover violated, or at least potentially violated, state law. The court found that, when Heminover backed away from the roadblock, he traveled 150 feet eastbound on the westbound portion of a divided highway. The court likened this to traveling the wrong direction on a one-way street. The court similarly found that, in changing directions to head south, Hemin-over briefly backed his van north along a southbound road. Finally, the court found that, in backing into the intersection, He-minover engaged in inherently dangerous activity, as the intersection was very busy with semitrailer truck traffic.
Determining that there was at least a possible violation of law, the court concluded that there was reasonable cause for Ramirez to pursue Heminover and make the initial stop. On this basis, the district court denied Heminover’s motion to suppress.
On appeal, Heminover challenged the district court’s rationale, contending that Ramirez did not charge him with “improper backing.” For this reason, Heminover says, Ramirez did not believe Heminover violated the law.
The State contended that Ramirez had reasonable cause to stop Heminover because he engaged in “improper backing,” and this constituted a traffic violation. A traffic violation, the State further contended, gives an officer probable cause to stop a motorist.
The court of appeals noted that Ramirez testified that he did not stop Heminover for “improper backing” but instead stopped him because Ramirez believed that Heminover was attempting to avoid a roadblock. Relying on language in our prior cases, the court of appeals concluded *357 that (1) officers are held to their true reasons for stopping a vehicle and (2) a court will not allow officers to justify a stop with reasons upon which they did not actually act. The court therefore refused to consider “improper backing” as grounds for the stop.
The court then considered Ramirez’s stated reason for the stop — avoidance of the roadblock- — -and concluded that Hemin-over’s actions in turning back did not give rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
The court of appeals’ reasons for refusing . to consider “improper backing” as grounds for the stop raises the following issue: Is the State limited to the reasons stated by the investigating officer in justifying the challenged stop based on reasonable cause? We have said “no” when the stop was premised on probable cause.
See Cline,
A. Background. The Fourth Amendment guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.... ” The Fourth Amendment is made applicable to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
Mapp v. Ohio,
When the police stop a car and temporarily detain an individual, the temporary detention is a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
Whren v. United States,
Terry v. Ohio,
To justify the stop,
Terry
required that the police officer “be able to point to specific and articulable facts, which taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.”
Terry,
In short, an investigatory stop of a vehicle is constitutionally permissible only if the officer who has made the stop has *358 specific and. articulable cause to reasonably believe criminal activity is afoot. Circumstances raising mere suspicion or curiosity are not enough.
1. Cases prior to Cline and Predka.
In
State v. Cooley,
this court first applied
Terry
to a stop of a motor vehicle.'
We then proceeded to do a Terry analysis but concluded that the facts articulated by the officers justifying the stop were not sufficient to uphold the stop constitutionally. Id. at 760.
Several of our cases dealing with investigatory stops based on reasonable cause since
Cooley
have cited it as authority for the proposition that “[ojfficers are bound by their true reason for making the stop. They may not rely on reasons they could have had but did not actually have.” As-
chenbrenner,
In
Aschenbrenner,
the officers did not articulate at the time of the stop the basis for it, which they claimed later in the suppression hearing.
In
Bailey,
the officer who stopped the defendant’s car testified that he made the stop pursuant to a radioed request from a fellow officer.
We have carefully reviewed Cooley and find nothing in that opinion that suggests the case stands for the proposition that in a Terry stop officers are bound by then-real reasons for making the stop. Such a rule calls for a subjective analysis that is inconsistent with the objective analysis that Terry requires.
In
Cooley,
the real reason the officers stopped the defendant’s car was because the officers believed the defendant’s actions before entering his car were suspicious.
However, notwithstanding a finding that this excuse was pretexual, the court in
Cooley
went on to do an objective analysis under
Terry
to determine whether the following facts were sufficient to uphold the stop: (1) the defendant’s vehicle was seen parked in an area having a high crime rate; (2) the vehicle carried out-of-county license plates; (3) the defendant engaged in conversation with an individual suspected by the police to be a drug dealer and robber; (4) occupants of the car, including the defendant, were white in a predominantly black area; and (5) a woman was driving the car and the defendant was a passenger.
We therefore suggest that subsequent cases invoking the rule that in cases involving a
Terry
stop officers are bound by their true reasons — a subjective analysis— are contrary to, rather than consistent with,
Cooley
and
Terry,
both of which call for an objective analysis. These subsequent cases were relying on the pretextual analysis in
Cooley,
but we think they were incorrect in applying that analysis in a case involving a
Terry
stop. In fact, the first case to cite
Cooley
for the rule that officers are bound by the true reasons for the stop under a
Terry
analysis cited to the pretextual analysis in
Cooley
for its authority.
See Asehenbrenner,
It is interesting to note that one year after this court decided
Cooley
and four years before it decided
Asehenbrenner,
the court very clearly said that in a
Terry
stop the test for reasonable cause to stop “is not the policeman’s subjective theory, but whether the record discloses articulable objective facts were available to the officer to justify the stop.”
State v. Donnell,
In support of this proposition, the court cited several federal appellate cases, each of which involved
Terry
stops.
See, e.g., United States v. Vital-Padilla,
2. Cases from other jurisdictions.
Other courts and commentators support our conclusion that a police officer’s subjective reasons for a stop are not controlling in a
Terry
stop. This is because, under a
Terry
analysis, the reasonable-suspicion test is measured according to an objective standard and not a subjective standard.
See, e.g., Ornelas,
3.
Whren v. United States.
Although
Whren v. United States,
We say
Whren
settles the question because we think there should be no distinction between a stop based on probable cause and a stop based on reasonable suspicion,
i.e.,
a
Terry
stop. The precise point was decided in
Hawkins.
The question there was whether a
Terry
stop could be justified on an offense other than that stated by the officer involved.
Hawkins,
The majority in Haiukins rejected the argument, stating:
*361 The dissent suggests that while an objective standard may be appropriate for arrest cases, where the issue is probable cause, only a subjective standard is appropriate for investigatory stops, which are judged under a reasonable suspicion inquiry. We do not find this distinction persuasive. The probable cause and reasonable suspicion tests are similar in that they both look to the incriminating facts known to the seizing officer to determine the validity of a “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment.
Id. at 215 n. 5. In other words, both tests are objective.
Evidently, in
Cline,
a probable-cause case, we implicitly agreed there should be no such distinction because we expressly overruled three
cases
— Wiese,
Rosenstiel,
and
Aschenbrenner
— which, as earlier mentioned, held that the motivation of the officer was controlling in determining the validity of a
Terry
stop.
See Cline,
B. Analysis. Because the
Terry
standard is one of objective reasonableness, we are not limited to what Ramirez says or to evidence of his subjective rationale. Rather, we look to the record as a whole to determine what facts were known to the deputy and then consider whether a reasonable officer in those circumstances would have reasonably believed Heminover was committing a traffic offense as the district court found.
See United States v. Cortez,
cient to justify the stop, the court must take into account the “whole picture,” and “[biased upon that whole picture, the detaining officers must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity”). In making that determination, we keep in mind that the level of objective justification for the stop,
i.e.,
the level of reasonable suspicion, “is considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence.”
United States v. Sokolow,
Although Ramirez testified that he stopped Heminover because he believed that Heminover was attempting to avoid a roadblock, the deputy also testified to a possible traffic violation:
Q. And what happened next?
A. At that point, I observed Mr. He-minover’s vehicle stop....
[[Image here]]
Q. Okay. And approximately how far from the intersection did the defendant’s vehicle travel?
A. Roughly about 150 feet.
Q. And then what happened?
A. Then he stopped — or like I said, he traveled that distance, and then he stopped. And when I started waving him over, he started to back up. That’s when I noticed that he was backing up and out into the intersection.
[[Image here]]
Q. What happened next?
A. Then he backed out into the intersection, and as he backed out into the intersection, he slowed for some oncoming traffic, and that’s when I realized that he was trying to get back down and get down this way. And so then I got into my patrol car, which was sitting over here, came back around and made the stop on Mr. Heminover.
Q. Let me stop you a little bit here and back up. You said he backed up *362 on — I assume he’s on Gilbertville. He backed up on Gilbertville Road?
A. That’s correct.
Q. That, in and of itself, is that a violation of the Iowa Code?
[[Image here]]
A. Yes, it is. Improper backing.
There was other evidence that Plaza Drive, the highway Heminover was backing into, is a very busy highway with semitrailer truck traffic. Taking this “whole picture” into consideration, we find a reasonable officer with knowledge of the facts known to Ramirez would have a particularized and objective basis to suspect Hemin-over was committing a traffic violation, i.e., improper backing. Iowa Code section •321.323 covers this offense and provides:
A person shall not cause a vehicle to be moved in a backtuard direction on a highiuay unless and until the vehicle can be backed with reasonable safety, and shall yield the right of way to any approaching vehicle on the highway or an intersecting highway which is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard.
(Emphasis added.) For these reasons, we conclude the stop of Heminover’s vehicle was justified. Therefore, any evidence Ramirez obtained thereafter was not in violation of Heminover’s Fourth Amendment rights.
III. Disposition.
Because there were facts giving rise to a reasonable suspicion to believe Hemin-over was committing a traffic violation, the investigatory stop of his vehicle was justified. For this reason, any evidence Ramirez obtained thereafter was not in violation of Heminover’s Fourth Amendment rights. We vacate the court of appeals decision to the contrary and affirm the judgment of the district court.
* Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206 (1999).
DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS VACATED; DISTRICT COURT JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.
