8.2 Manual Traffic Direction & Roadway Incident Safety

Manual Traffic Direction & Roadway Incident Safety

Unit VI.B — Traffic Direction (2 required hours) is the smallest sub-topic in the 50-hour Traffic Control unit and one of the most dangerous skills the officer will ever perform. Officers direct traffic at crashes, signal failures, structure fires, special events, funeral processions, and school crossings — usually at night, often in weather, and always with drivers who are distracted.

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1. Legal Authority

Under C.R.S. 42-4-104, a driver must obey any lawful order or direction of a police officer or authorized flagger, and an officer's direction supersedes traffic control devices — signals, signs, and pavement markings. A driver who runs a red light on an officer's hand signal is obeying the law; a driver who obeys the signal against the officer's direction is not.

Related provisions officers apply on the roadway:

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2. Position and Visibility

        │        │        │        │
        │   ←────┼── officer stands where ALL approaches
        │        │   can see him and he can see them
   ─────┼────────┼────────┼──────  keep a fixed object at your BACK
        │   ⬤    │        │        never between two moving lanes
        │  OFC   │        │        never in the released lane's path
   ─────┼────────┼────────┼──────
        │        │        │

• Stand in a location visible from every approach, generally near the center of the intersection or slightly offset toward the heaviest approach.
• Never stand where a vehicle can pin you against a patrol car, a signal pole, or a guardrail.
• Face the traffic you are stopping; turn your body, not just your arm, when you change the flow.
• Keep your feet planted at roughly shoulder width, weight balanced, with an escape path identified before you start.
• At crashes, stand upstream of the crash so you are working with traffic in front of you rather than behind you.

High-visibility apparel. Federal and state practice requires ANSI/ISEA-compliant high-visibility outerwear on public roadways. A dark uniform at night is functionally invisible to a driver with headlight glare, and "they should have seen me" has never protected an officer.

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3. Standardized Signals

Hand signals — stopping traffic:

1. Make eye contact with the lead driver of the lane you intend to stop.
2. Extend the arm fully, palm out and fingers together, toward that driver and hold it.
3. Once that direction stops, turn and repeat for the opposite approach.

Hand signals — starting traffic:

1. Turn your body so your side faces the lane to be released.
2. Make eye contact with the lead driver.
3. Bend the arm at the elbow with the palm up, and sweep the hand toward your chin in a clear, deliberate arc.
4. Repeat the motion until the flow is established.

Turning movements. Point directly at the driver, then sweep your arm in the direction of the intended movement. Exaggerate every motion; a small, ambiguous signal produces a hesitant driver in the middle of an intersection.

Whistle convention:

The whistle carries over engine and weather noise and draws driver attention before the hand signal is interpreted. Blow first, then signal.

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4. Night, Weather and Special Conditions

• Use an illuminated traffic wand rather than a bare flashlight; a wand's motion is readable at distance while a flashlight beam blinds.
• Increase advance warning distance in rain, snow and fog. Stopping distance grows dramatically on Colorado's winter surfaces, and mountain grades add to it.
• Do not stand in the shadow between two light sources; drivers lose you completely in the transition.
• In blowing snow and at high altitude, expect delayed driver reaction and plan for a much longer buffer.
• Funeral processions and special events should be planned with cones, advance signs and a defined route, not improvised at the intersection.

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5. Roadway Incident Safety

Struck-by incidents are a leading cause of officer line-of-duty deaths nationally. The practices that reduce them:

1. Advance warning. Place cones, flares or a warning triangle upstream at a distance matched to the posted speed — further on a highway, further still on a curve or over a crest.
2. Fend-off / block positioning. Angle the first-arriving apparatus to shield the work area, creating a protected space downstream of the vehicle.
3. Emergency lighting discipline. Too much light is a hazard. Reduce forward-facing white light at night; it blinds approaching drivers and draws impaired ones straight into the scene.
4. Work with traffic in front of you. Never turn your back on live lanes.
5. Move the scene. If vehicles are drivable and no one is seriously injured, relocate the entire contact off the travel lanes before doing anything else.
6. Request closure early. On a high-speed roadway, request CDOT or a full lane closure sooner than feels necessary; the resource takes time to arrive.
7. Move Over enforcement. C.R.S. 42-4-705 requires drivers approaching a stationary emergency vehicle displaying lights to move over or slow; enforcing it protects the next officer as much as this one.