More actual facts are needed. In any traffic stop the police have a right to take reasonable measures to insure their own safety, which includes looking in the windows for the presence of weapons. If a plain sight search from the outside of the vehicle revealed a weapon that’s all they would need.
But if such a search revealed nothing, next question is why did they have driver exit the vehicle. If drive has no valid license, has a criminal record or appears to be inebriated etc. removing from vehicle is probably valid, in which case police have right to look at area where driver was sitting for a plain sight weapon. They have the right to ask driver if he has any weapons on his person and have the right to perform a search of his person.
As for searching the rest of the vehicle the law is fuzzy. If the police had already determined that driver does not own vehicle they cannot ask his permission for a search since he does not have authority to grant permission. If the police had not yet determined driver did not own vehicle and asked his permission to search the vehicle they needed some level of probable cause to ask for such permission. Driver being a seven- foot tall black man is not supposed to create probable cause to ask for search permission.
And this is why lawyers and cops and judges are held in such universal high esteem.
