Driving near Autzen Stadium on football game days may be a little safer, thanks to increased efforts to catch people driving under the influence.
Beginning Sept. 1, the Eugene Police Department, along with the Lane County Sheriff’s Office and the Oregon State Police, increased its presence on the roads around Autzen Stadium on game days.
In addition, new game-day guidelines at Autzen Stadium will serve to prevent fans from bringing alcohol into the stadium. Beginning at the Sept. 1 game, only “factory-sealed” plastic beverage containers were allowed in.
While fans can still bring reusable water bottles or other empty plastic beverage containers into the stadium, any liquid inside will have to be disposed of at the gate, said Vicki Strand, events manager for the Athletic Department.
Containers such as soda bottles must still have the factory seal in place when brought through the gate, Strand said.
“We acknowledge that we have alcohol coming into the stadium and we feel it is a good step toward discouraging people from bringing alcohol,” she said.
Throughout the season, 12 to 15 additional officers will patrol the streets around the stadium on game days, keeping an eye out for drunken drivers, EPD Public Information Director Melinda Kletzok said.
Some of the additional officers are “Drug Recognition Experts,” or DREs, who are specially trained to recognize the signs that a driver is under the influence of intoxicants, Pete Kerns, EPD Patrol Division captain, said.
Processing a DUII stop takes quite a bit of additional time and resources and takes the arresting officer off the streets for as long as two hours, Kerns said. The addition of the extra DREs allows other officers to stick to their regular patrols instead of responding to “things related to the games.”
The DRE officers are trained to look for behavior such as driving over the center line, going too slow or too fast or swerving, Kletzok said.
While the extra officers may not be a visible presence because they are mostly patrolling streets away from the stadium such as Coburg Road, I-105 and I-5, the presence will hopefully make it easier for police to catch drunken drivers, Kletzok said.
“This extra patrol is just another piece that’s going to make things better,” she said. “There already is a lot of good positive energy going into the programs that are encouraging people to be responsible.”
According to a press release about the stepped-up efforts, 210 people were arrested for DUII on home game days during the past five football seasons (2002-2006). There were 1,500 arrests for other liquor violations in the same time period, the release says.
Kletzok said numbers for DUII arrests for non-game days during the same time period were not available.
Four people were arrested for DUII on Sept. 1, the first day the patrols were increased, Kletzok said. She said things were “quieter than expected,” especially given the warm weather.
Kerns said that while he thinks the Sept. 1 patrol “went OK,” it could have been more productive.
“There are many drunk drivers on game day, following a game, and with the traffic congestion it is a challenge,” he said. “I think we did as well as we could under the circumstance and I think we’ll be even more effective in the future.”
Kletzok said it is important to note that minors who are pulled over for driving while drunk can not have any alcohol in their system and can be hit with DUII charges even if their blood alcohol level is below the legal limit of .08 percent. Riding a bicycle under the influence is also illegal, Kletzok said.