I recently attended a training conference and left with more questions than answers. I found myself talking to instructors from across the world and hearing a wide array of answers to how to best train law enforcement officers. The conversations got me to thinking about how we train and why we train the way we do.
The term “Best Practices” is often thrown around within law enforcement circles. In the last three decades we’ve seen a radical increase in law enforcement training, the use of technology and with that the use of “best practices” to evolve that training. Indeed, anyone who has been in law enforcement for more than a few years knows that everything from high-risk vehicle stops to active shooter response has been changed through the years. These changes almost always improve how we respond to incidents and essentially makes law enforcement and the community safer.
What about emergency vehicle operations and the training accompanying that? Many agencies have been training in this high risk activity for more than two decades and some of that training has not changed. What are the best practices in emergency vehicle operations training?
Several months ago I was supervising a pursuit course. I looked out and saw a challenging course that tested the student’s ability to drive. There were plenty of opportunities to test their skill level in steering, braking, accelerating and cornering. I saw the violator vehicle driving fast and the student doing a very good job of maintaining a visual on the suspect while talking on the radio.
What troubled me was what I did not see. I didn’t see any vehicle traffic. I didn’t see any intersections. Most importantly, I didn’t see anything that resembled a real pursuit. I was absolutely angry at what I saw. I had been managing, supervising, and instructing emergency vehicle operations for more than a decade – I was responsible for training officers in one of the most high risk behaviors they can do – and that training was about as unrealistic as it could get. Simply put, when a student left that training course, they would never drive in a pursuit like that again. They would never be in a pursuit that didn’t encounter intersections or vehicle traffic. I had to accept the possibility that I was training officers to be nothing but fast drivers on a closed course with no real sense of danger or critical decision making. I was building overconfidence and on that day I decided that was going to stop.
What I saw and advocated for so long was nothing new. That particular training is the same training that I received as a cadet and it is the same training that thousands of officers receive each year. As I searched for answers on how to improve on this traditional course, I kept coming back to “best practices.”
Mandatory Training
Emergency Vehicle Operations Training should be conducted on a yearly basis. Law enforcement driving is a perishable skill and without regular training in both vehicle dynamics and decision making, the techniques taught will be lost with time. This concept has been adopted with firearms training for many years by virtually every agency in America. It is time that mandatory training in EVOC is adopted as a “best practice.”
Several states and many more individual agencies have adopted this practice and it is time that we all do. The San Diego Police Department, Washington State Patrol, The State of Wisconsin, and the State of Florida are just some agencies and states that have implemented mandatory training in driving for law enforcement officers and it should not stop there.
Data Collection
In an effort to identify what works and what doesn’t work, we must take what we are doing in this mandatory training and compare it to our on-duty actions. Do you know which officers are having collisions and the reasons why? We must go beyond the cause of the collision. What age group is at the most risk? At what hour in their shift did more collisions occur? Those and many more data points should be collected and analyzed so that management practices and training can address the issues of vehicle collisions.
We currently are doing certain activities in our training that work and when those are compared to the data and we identify training that is a success, we must grab on to it and tell others. The collection and analysis of data on law enforcement related collisions, vehicle incidents, and vehicle pursuits are a must if any professional organization is going to improve their operations.
How We Train
Traditionally, EVOC Training has dealt with the vehicle itself along with techniques to be taught. Whether it is how to brake, steer, overcome skids, etc. we have typically done a very good job of teaching our officers how to overcome a dangerous situation when it happens. Personally, I have made two very troubling mistakes in this area.
I assumed that the 56 hour block in the academy or the eight hour block for existing officers were sufficient to instill collision avoidance techniques. Simply put, if an officer encounters a skid, vehicle malfunction, or an obstacle, will they respond in that stressful situation the way they were trained? What if they’ve had few hours of training or no training for a long period of time? Some will respond correctly, but it is painfully apparent that most do not.
I observe countless officer involved collisions across the country that could have been avoided if these emergency techniques we teach would have been used. An eight hour class even every year may not be enough to keep our officers safe. I have come to the conclusion that the traditional way we train is flawed.
Decision Making
While we have done a good job of sending an officer home from training with sound, proven techniques for collision avoidance, shouldn’t we also be focusing on keeping an officer from even having to use those techniques?
Several years ago I had an officer bring me a video of one of his emergency responses. He was excited because as he responded to the scene, two cars pulled in front of him, and just as he was taught, he was able to successfully avoid the collision. What I saw on the tape astounded me. While I saw an excellent use of techniques to avoid a side impact collision with a citizen at high speeds, what I also saw was an absolute disregard for common sense and safety during the driving response that led up to the collision avoidance.
That tape has been used as a mantra for many future seminars or classes that I teach: “Nice job on the techniques but if you would make the right decisions first, you will never use the techniques that you were taught.”
That should be our goal as instructors and a “best practice.”
Sergeant Rich Maxwell with the Colts Neck Township (NJ) Police Department and the former President of ALERT International describes the importance of decision making. “Simply stepping on the brake when the light turns red, or go left and right when told is not decision making. Decision Making Skills Training should involve complex decisions. It needs to involve a choice of responses to the stimuli that is presented to the student, including best choice, acceptable choice, and the wrong choice. Including opportunities to do two or three “things” at the same time will really stimulate the students and enhance their anxiety level thereby adding more realism to the training. The ultimate decision making can be achieved by conducting Scenario Based Training. In EVOC this can involve simulated pursuits, simulated emergency response runs, or just adding complex choices in the individual skills component exercises.”
Decision making must be used in every aspect of our training. Whether it is using simulation, classroom scenarios, or maneuvers on a track, we must make decision making the primary tool for training. If you disagree, research how your officers are getting in collisions. How much does decision making play a role? If you are like the rest of the country, it almost plays the entire role.
Reality
With decision making the primary role in training brings a very important aspect of any training course: Reality.
As I looked out on that pursuit course several months ago, I knew something was wrong: it lacked realism. Training is about replicating the environment to teach the desired input by the student so the desired outcome occurs. Without the realism, we are simply wasting time. The start of that reality is placing the student in the same environment that they work in or in the case of EVOC, as close as we can get.
Time of Day
We should train our officers during the same time that they work. It has never made sense to pull an officer from a graveyard shift to the daytime to train them. Not only are they supposed to be sleeping while you are training them, in all likelihood they will use what you have taught them at night, not during the day. When it comes to driving, the difference is literally night and day.
Deputy Richard Parks with the Martin County (Florida) Sheriff’s Department describes the importance of training during the night as well as during the day. “It is a given that we must train in the same environment as we work in and our agency is continuing to do that. As part of our training I routinely come in at two in the morning to train our graveyard officers.”
Deputy Parks is one of many instructors that have identified the importance and need to train their officers at the same time that they work every day. Training is about reality and the beginning of that reality is to train at the right time.
Intersections
Along with the training at the right time, our track should reflect what officers encounter while on-duty. Utilizing intersections in driving courses should be a “best practice.”
San Diego Police Lieutenant and driving instructor John Leas describes the importance in using intersections within training courses.
“One of the biggest challenges any emergency vehicle operator faces when responding to an emergency or during a pursuit situation is safely clearing an intersection, especially when breaching it against stop signs or traffic signals. Once lecture and theory for safely clearing intersections is discussed, practical application should include driving exercises that simulate an emergency response where the operator has to slow down, use proper warning devices and clear the intersection lane by lane, as needed, to avoid a catastrophic collision. The priority is to get to the call as safely as possible and arrive alive.”
While some instructors have access to actual intersections, those that have limited space have found other techniques to emphasize the importance of clearing intersections. Ohio EVOC Instructor Mark Bayse likes to place colored cones in the identified intersection areas and have the student call out the color of the cone and advise the instructor that the intersection is clear prior to driving through it.
Traffic
Along with intersections, we must deploy interference traffic on our courses. I was introduced to this technique several years ago and initially thought it was crazy but I have personally seen the positive impact this has made on the realism of training.
San Diego Police Lieutenant John Leas agrees with utilizing interference traffic within courses.
“Interference or Distractor cars driven by trained EVOC instructors offer a level of reality to what is experienced in the field. It forces law enforcement drivers to get the big picture and helps eliminate tunnel vision, especially during pursuit situations. Although this practice can be viewed as somewhat dangerous if applied incorrectly, skilled EVOC drivers properly challenge emergency response drivers at intersections and when overtaking conflicting civilian traffic during EVO. This is a great opportunity to evaluate critical decision-making skills.”
Conclusion
EVOC Training has been playing catch up for some time. It seems that often we spend more time trying to justify why we need to train than simply training officers on how to survive behind the wheel of the vehicle. More officers are being killed and injured in a vehicle than in any other activity. We are at best in a crisis. We must address this issue now and not later. The common relation with any professional or group is a set standard of requirements and goals.
As I watched that pursuit course I realized that as EVOC Instructors we are far away from those professional standards and the place to begin is a set standard on “best practices.”
What are yours? Let us know and we may include them in part 2 of this article.
