CJK0400C – Traffic Incidents is a 12-hour course within Florida's 770-hour Law Enforcement Basic Recruit Training Program, carrying zero credit hours as a clock-hour academy component. It is the first of the academy's four traffic courses.
The course covers what an officer does when the roadway itself is the problem: directing traffic manually when signals fail or a scene blocks lanes, establishing and protecting a scene on an active roadway, managing disabled and abandoned vehicles, responding to roadway hazards and debris, and coordinating with fire, EMS, and towing.
The organizing concern is officer survivability on the roadway. Being struck by a vehicle is among the leading causes of law enforcement line-of-duty death, and the risk is highest exactly where this course applies — an officer standing in or beside moving traffic, often at night, often near a scene that is drawing drivers' attention away from the road. Recruits learn vehicle positioning to create a protected work area, high-visibility apparel requirements, advance warning and taper placement, and the habit of never assuming a driver has seen them.
Florida's Move Over Law (Section 316.126, F.S.) is covered both as an enforcement matter and as a survival matter — it exists because officers were being killed on shoulders, and officers are expected to know how to invoke and enforce it.
The course is offered at approximately 20 Florida institutions, all of them state colleges operating criminal justice training centers or regional public safety academies: Chipola, College of Central Florida, College of the Florida Keys, Daytona State, Eastern Florida State, Florida Gateway, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Gulf Coast State, Hillsborough, Indian River State, Miami Dade, North Florida, Northwest Florida State, Palm Beach State, Pasco-Hernando, Pensacola State, Santa Fe, South Florida State, St. Johns River, and Seminole State.
Four academy courses cover traffic, totalling 90 hours — a substantial share of the 770, reflecting how much of a patrol officer's work is traffic-related:
They are normally taken in sequence, and the legal foundation for all four is Chapter 316, Florida Statutes (the Florida Uniform Traffic Control Law), covered in CJK0018 Legal.
The Law Enforcement Basic Recruit Training Program (LEBRTP) is a 770-hour academy required for certification as a sworn law enforcement officer under Chapter 943, Florida Statutes. The curriculum is written and maintained by the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission (CJSTC) through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, so content is consistent statewide. The full sequence:
Every component is a clock-hour course carrying zero credit hours, and none counts toward an associate degree.
Completing this course does not certify anyone. Recruits must finish the full 770-hour academy, pass the State Officer Certification Examination (SOCE), and satisfy the employment and background requirements of Chapter 943, F.S. Certification is granted by CJSTC, not by the college, and an officer must also be employed by an agency to be certified.
Requirements attach to the academy rather than to this individual course: minimum age 19, U.S. citizenship, high school diploma or equivalent, no felony convictions or disqualifying misdemeanors, a background investigation, a physical examination and drug screening, and a passing score on the Florida Basic Abilities Test (CJBAT). Requirements are set in statute and by the training center.
Academy training is PSAV clock-hour instruction, not college credit, and does not transfer as general education. Many Florida colleges award block credit toward an A.S. in Criminal Justice Technology for full academy completion plus certification, under local articulation agreements rather than statewide SCNS equivalency. Confirm terms with the receiving institution.
Officers already certified in another discipline — corrections to law enforcement, for instance — complete abbreviated crossover programs drawing on a subset of these courses rather than the full academy. Candidates should work from the crossover curriculum published by their training center.
The course appears as both CJK0400 and CJK0400C in Florida catalogs; Santa Fe College's program listing uses CJK0400 at 12 contact hours. Under SCNS the forms are equivalent at the same level, the C designation reflecting an integrated practical component.
Directing traffic looks like the simplest thing an officer does, which is exactly why it is dangerous. Struck-by incidents are a leading cause of law enforcement line-of-duty death nationally, and they happen on routine calls — a disabled vehicle, a minor crash, a signal outage. The course is short because the procedures are few, not because the stakes are low. Instructors typically teach it with line-of-duty death case studies, and the positioning habits established here are expected to carry into every roadway contact for the rest of an officer's career.
Generated August 31, 2026 · Updated August 31, 2026