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The Oregon Department of State Police plans to blanket the 25-mile section
of highway between Sisters and the Santiam Pass with saturation patrols over
the Memorial Day weekend.
Speeders and truckers beware.
Starting on Thursday at 7 a.m., OSP will use Federal Transportation Act funds
to schedule 60 hours of overtime to look for truck violations, according to
Senior Trooper Curtis M. Decker.
There will be "numerous" inspections, according to Decker.
From Friday afternoon until Monday evening, Federal Highway Safety Speed
Enforcement funds will allow OSP to put as many as four or five patrol units on
the highway at one time.
In addition to their regular very visible patrol cars, OSP Mustangs and Camaros
without overhead lights will be out with at least one unmarked patrol car of a
color other than OSP bright white.
Overhead, a state police airplane will fly, clocking speeders and alerting
patrol cars on the ground to other violations.
"Oregon law has changed. It used to be that aircraft could only be used to call
out speed violations. Now they can call out a bad pass or any observable
violation," Decker said.
The goal of the saturation patrols is to "reduce the high accident rate on that
25-mile stretch of highway and set the tone for enforcement over the summer,"
Decker said.
The Santiam from Sisters to the Santiam Junction is one of the most dangerous
in the state, with a high fatality rate, he said.
Even after the Memorial Day weekend, OSP plans to occasionally put two or three
patrol vehicles on the Santiam Highway at one time, giving drivers the message
to slow down.
Decker said that this is the second year for Memorial Day saturation.
"Last year we had a lot of success. We took 15 to 20 trucks out of service and
took one trucker to jail for possession of a controlled substance. With the
plane on the weekend we wrote numerous citations," Decker said.
Decker said drivers would blast over the top of the pass toward home on Sunday,
clocked at 80 to 90 MPH, only to be blocked by stop-and-go traffic just past
Hoodoo at Hogg Rock, where the highway narrows to one lane each way and drivers
slow for steep downhill curves and dangerous drops from the highway shoulder
into the gorge below.
A greater police presence reduced that kind of fruitless and dangerous driving,
he said.
"We successfully prevented accidents and set the tone for the rest of the 1995
season," Decker said. "We had several comments that the pass was less crazy
than in previous summers."
Decker said that "when I am up there, usually this stuff does not happen. It is
when I am off or we don't have a patrol that we get the accidents. That area is
on the border of three different counties and it is hard for sheriff deputies
to patrol."
