By Hugh Anderson
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A few years ago, I was visiting another police service for what was supposed to be a routine conversation about vehicles, equipment and training. As I was leaving, the training sergeant pulled me aside. “Got five minutes?” he asked. “I want you to come see this dashcam footage.”
It was a spot audit from rush-hour traffic on a mix of two-lane and four-lane roads. The officer was weaving through vehicles, mounting sidewalks and running red lights.
The vehicle being pursued was a stolen cube van. Not a high-performance getaway car. Just a box on wheels.
I asked the obvious question: suspension, reassignment, discipline?
None of the above. Divisional leadership had decided it was fixable with remedial training. This would be the officer’s third round. The sergeant already knew what I was going to say.
“If leadership isn’t going to support the policy and procedures, there’s nothing your instructors can do during a remedial session that will change anything,” I told him. He simply nodded because he already knew.
The real problem may not be skill
Most remedial training is well intentioned. Instructors work hard and care deeply about getting drivers back on track. But when someone repeatedly violates policy, ignores procedure and demonstrates poor judgment without meaningful consequence, the issue may no longer be training. It may be a behavior problem being managed under the heading of remedial training.
No workbook fixes attitude. No slide deck repairs organizational tolerance. Training can explain standards. Policy can define expectations. But without supervision and leadership reinforcement, remedial training can become documentation rather than correction — a record that something was done, not evidence that anything changed.
We have phrases for this kind of thinking: “All’s well that ends well.” “No news is good news.” What those phrases usually mean is nobody got hurt. This time.
Why this matters
Traffic-related incidents remain a major cause of officer line-of-duty deaths in North America each year. But fatalities tell only part of the story. Preventable police vehicle incidents also create injuries, damaged cruisers, staffing disruptions, administrative burdens and costly civil liability.
Many involve familiar contributors: speed mismanagement, poor judgment, failure to reassess risk and preventable decision-making errors.
The Below 100 initiative has framed this clearly: predictable is preventable. That framing matters because it removes the excuse that these incidents are random or unavoidable. They are not. They are the downstream result of decisions made — or avoided — long before the collision.
Consider what the data already tells us. A single preventable pursuit collision can generate six-figure liability exposure, weeks of administrative process, media attention and a staffing gap that falls on the officers left behind. Multiply that by a culture where dangerous behavior goes uncorrected and the cost stops being theoretical. It becomes a budget line, a lawsuit and possibly a name on a memorial.
Dangerous driving rarely appears without warning. It is often preceded by tolerated shortcuts, uncorrected behavior and repeated signals that standards are optional. That has a cost. Sometimes delayed. Never avoided.
Three parts of one safety system
Effective police driver safety does not rest on training alone. It depends on three elements working together.
1. Policy
- Defines what is acceptable, what is prohibited and what consequences follow violations.
- Sets the boundaries that training and supervision are built to reinforce.
2. Training
- Builds vehicle control, judgment, tactical decision-making and risk awareness.
- Delivers the message but cannot enforce it alone.
3. Supervision
- Ensures standards live in the field through observation, early coaching and consistent response to violations.
- Closes the gap between what is taught and what is practiced.
Remove one element and the system weakens. Remove two and the system stops functioning as intended.
In the cube van pursuit, the policy existed. Training had already been delivered — multiple times. What was missing was enforcement and leadership support. The driver learned the wrong lesson: dangerous behavior leads to another course.
What effective supervision looks like
Behavior-based supervision is not complicated. It means paying attention to how officers actually drive during normal operations — not only during formal training or after a complaint. It means timely, specific feedback. It means uncomfortable conversations when they are required. And it means consistency — the same standard applied regardless of who is behind the wheel or who their friends are.
That is where many organizations struggle. Accountability is easy to endorse in principle and difficult to apply when it creates staffing issues, paperwork or conflict with a popular officer. But every tolerated shortcut teaches something to everyone watching. Leadership that repeatedly chooses the path of least resistance does not just fail one officer — it sends a message to the entire patrol division.
The standard does not have to be punitive to be effective. Early intervention — a direct conversation, a documented coaching session, a clear statement of expectation — is almost always more effective than waiting until behavior escalates to a formal process. Supervisors who address behavior before it becomes a pattern protect the officer, the public and the organization. Those who wait protect no one.
Practical recommendations
For trainers
- Determine whether the issue is a genuine skill gap, a behavior pattern or both. These require different responses.
- If it is not a remedial training issue, say so clearly to supervisors and leadership. That conversation is part of your professional responsibility.
- Document findings specifically. Vague records protect no one.
- Use realistic scenario-based training tied to operational conditions — not exercises that exist only on a closed course.
For supervisors
- Observe routine driving, not only collisions or formal complaints.
- Correct course early. A brief conversation now is easier than a formal process later.
- Apply policy consistently. Inconsistency is its own message.
For leadership
- Publicly support standards and the supervisors who enforce them.
- Back supervisors making difficult calls. Silence is interpreted as withdrawal of support.
- Ask honestly what repeated retraining without consequence communicates to the rest of the organization.
Closing
The gap between what we teach, what we write and what we enforce is where dangerous driving survives. Closing that gap is not only a training task. It is a leadership responsibility. And until organizations treat driver behavior with the same seriousness as curriculum, some remedial training will remain exactly what it was that day in that room with that sergeant: A placeholder.
About the author
Hugh Anderson is a Driver Training Specialist with Peel Regional Police in Ontario, Canada, with more than 25 years of experience in law enforcement driver training and vehicle operations. He writes EVOC Insider, a newsletter for emergency vehicle operations professionals across North America.
