Impaired drivers be warned – enhanced police patrols in Newberg, Dundee on tap

Drivers who have had a few too many drinks, or consumed too many edibles, during a two-week period in August are likely going to get attention they would rather not garner.

The Newberg-Dundee Police Department will stage the first of its two annual “sober driving campaigns” from Aug. 16 through Labor Day. The second effort typically runs from Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day.

“This is a focused enforcement effort to detect and arrest motorists who are driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol,” a release from the agency said.

The effort has been made possible over the past decade via grants from the Oregon Department of Transportation and Oregon Impact, a safe driving advocacy group headquartered in Milwaukie. The funds allow the NDPD to deploy its drug recognition expert for periodic traffic enforcement operations such as this and, overall, can pay for up to 70 hours of overtime that can be used over the course of a year as needed.

“Last year for those specific events, we arrested 10 impaired drivers, with an average of about a 100 DUII arrests per year in total,” said NDPD Sgt. Brian Hagen.

The sergeant added that so far in 2024, the NDPD is on pace to arrest more than 100 impaired drivers — some during the two sober driving campaigns and some over the course of normal day-to-day policing.

“One single DUII arrest takes about four hours for an officer to complete from start to finish, so they can be very time consuming,” Hagen said.