CJK0403 – DUI Traffic Stops is a 24-hour course within Florida's 770-hour Law Enforcement Basic Recruit Training Program, carrying zero credit hours as a clock-hour academy component.
Driving under the influence is among the most heavily litigated offenses an officer charges. Defense challenges are routine and sophisticated, focusing on whether the stop was lawful, whether the officer administered field sobriety tests according to validated protocol, and whether the breath test instrument was properly maintained and operated. A DUI case is won or lost on procedure, and this course is largely about procedure.
The instructional backbone is the NHTSA DWI Detection and Standardized Field Sobriety Testing curriculum, which organizes detection into three phases: vehicle in motion (observing driving behavior that predicts impairment), personal contact (observation at the window — odor, speech, coordination, divided-attention performance), and pre-arrest screening (the standardized field sobriety tests).
The three standardized field sobriety tests — Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus, Walk and Turn, and One Leg Stand — are validated only when administered exactly as prescribed and scored by defined clues. Deviation from protocol is the most common basis for excluding the results, and recruits are drilled on precise administration.
Florida-specific law is substantial: the 0.08 BAC threshold, implied consent under Section 316.1932 and the consequences of refusal, breath testing under FDLE Alcohol Testing Program rules, blood draw authority, and DUI with property damage, serious bodily injury, or death.
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 standardized field sobriety tests are validated only when administered exactly as prescribed. An officer who gives the Walk and Turn instructions out of order, or who administers HGN with a moving stimulus at the wrong speed, has produced results a defense expert will challenge and a court may exclude. This is the single most important thing the course teaches, and it is why recruits practice administration repeatedly under observation rather than merely learning the clues.
Florida's implied consent law means refusing a lawful breath test carries an automatic administrative license suspension — and a second refusal is itself a criminal offense. These consequences are separate from the DUI prosecution and proceed on a different track through FLHSMV. Officers must read the implied consent warning accurately; an incorrect or incomplete reading undermines the suspension.
The SFST battery was validated for alcohol impairment. It does not reliably detect impairment by cannabis, prescription medication, or other substances, and there is no breath equivalent for drugs. Florida agencies rely on Drug Recognition Experts for those cases, and DRE availability varies considerably by region. Recruits should understand the limit of their own training and when a DRE call is warranted.
DUI is among the most frequently contested charges, and officers testify on these cases more than on almost any other. The report and the video will be examined line by line. Recruits are taught to document each procedural step contemporaneously, because a step not documented is, in practice, a step that did not happen.
Generated August 31, 2026 · Updated August 31, 2026