An instructor in the police academy said I’d do thousands of car stops in my career. He said the only way to not get complacent was to treat every encounter as an opportunity to practice good officer-safety tactics. If I did that, he said, I’d never get caught out. This isn’t some theoretical challenge — many people know that car stops are dangerous. Somehow, it’s hard to explain exactly why they’re not routine.
So, let me take you there.