Cops and Cars: Changing the Training Paradigm

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Overview

Title: Cops and Cars: Changing the Training Paradigm

Date: Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Time: 10:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time

Duration: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Why do some officers jump on, or in, a vehicle during a traffic stop when the driver suddenly puts it in gear? Or shoot at vehicles that are coming at them rather than jumping out of the way? Why do officers, in time-compressed and dynamic situations, make decisions that seem to put them at increased risk? Has past training contributed to these situations?

These and other questions dominate the public discourse when incidents involving vehicles go wrong – something underscored by the recent attention on the Barnes v. FelixSupreme Court case. In Part 1 of this webinar series, designed for all law enforcement professionals, we go beyond surface-level explanations to examine the human factors, training paradigms, and legal realities that shape officer behavior during high-stress vehicle-related encounters.

You’ll learn:

• How automaticity and neural conditioning influence officer decision-making under pressure.

• The concept of perception-reaction time (PRT) and how it impacts real-world use-of-force decisions.

• The effects of looming and perceptual distortion when a vehicle appears to accelerate toward an officer.

• The implications of recent legal decisions, including Barnes v. Felix, and what they mean for policy and training.