State Police Saturate Interstate With Unmarked Cars and an Eye in The Sky

(Salem) - It was a bad day to speed on Oregon's Interstate-5. State Police troopers were out in force with a multi-faceted approach at slowing drivers down. Tools used Monday in the state trooper saturation patrol included a police aircraft and an unmarked Camaro with a sticker in the back window that read, "Drive it like you stole it." A few people seemed to already have the idea. One mom with her small baby in the back seat was clocked at 92 m.p.h. That was just the beginning. Charlie Burdick, a Senior Trooper with Oregon State Police, says there are two main driving problems that factor in all too often, "They need to pay attention to their speeds and make sure they're not following too close." Speeding and tailgating he says, often leads to tragedy, "That's the major cause of accidents on the freeway." Burdick has been chasing speeders down Oregon's highways for nearly two decades. They're drivers that don't pay enough attention. "They get tunnel vision, they're not focusing on what is in front of them or what's around them, basically just looking straight ahead." And while those drivers are staring straight ahead, state police recruit Andy Goffrier says OSP troopers in the sky are looking straight down... at them."It's kind of a different experience, it's good having somebody up in the air spotting people that we can't see." Goffrier says there is no escaping the eye in the sky. "He can actually see vertically down and see what they're doing. Having him above us, makes it nice" Another tool in the inventory is the unmarked patrol car. The Chevy Z28 although slightly official looking, misses the attention of most drivers, according to OSP Trooper Shawn Swisher. "It gives me the opportunity to see the things you would not see in a marked unit." The blue Camaro can be almost as hard to spot as the police airplane above. "We get to see them following too close, the unsafe lane changes and such, that we wouldn't be able to see in a marked unit." A new law that went into effect last week in Oregon enhances penalties for drivers who exceed 100 m.p.h. They can now lose their license for 30 days if they break the three digit mark on their speedometer. The radar guns clocked one young man driving at 104 m.p.h. It changed his day dramatically. He was not only cited for violating Oregon's new 100 m.p.h. law, he was also arrested for existing warrants. Troopers say it shouldn't be a hard lesson for most people. They suggest that particularly in wet weather, drivers slow down and drive more defensively. They hope the new laws continue to improve traffic safety. As far as getting caught, it pays not to assume too much. Burdick says that after a few years, traffic cops develop a sense for speeders that requires no radar gun, "You do get to where you can just see the fast cars as you're standing alongside the road. You get used to one speed, the speed limit, then you see a faster car coming down the road, you can pick them out very quickly." The fines are expensive and the potential for disaster is huge. The odds shift away from the favor of the driver when they mix higher speed with bad weather, not to mention tailgating. These troopers are the ones who investigate traffic freeway crashes and then notify the families of those who died. They have their reasons for asking you to slow down, and they hope Oregon drivers are listening.