The Vancouver Police Department has received $150,000 from the state for combating driving under the influence, and residents will start seeing one of several ad campaigns with signs on the side of C-Tran buses starting in the next weeks, along with increased patrols.
The first of those enhanced patrol events — where there will be more cops out watching for impaired drivers — is Super Bowl Sunday.
Vancouver Police Lt. Steve Neal said the department applied for and will administer the grant, which will mostly go to paying for overtime hours for extra traffic patrols.
“Every department, we’ve at least engaged in conversation with them,” he said. “It’s a yearlong grant, so we still have some planning to do to coordinate who’s going to participate in which event.”
Other extra patrol dates might include Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day or dates around local happenings such as the Amboy Territorial Days or the national motocross event in Washougal.
The bus ads will roll out in multi-week campaigns a few times over the next year. The grant will also pay for posters and drink coasters that Neal said organizers plan to put in higher-visibility areas.
The ads say “Drunk, drugged or high … It’s all a DUI,” a reminder that whatever substance one uses, hopping into the driver’s seat under the influence makes it a DUI, Neal said.
The grant money is part of the state’s Target Zero initiative, a project to eliminate fatal crashes by 2030.
“Unfortunately, Vancouver and Clark County have some recent history with fatal collisions on such days,” Neal said, referencing a fatal crash on the day of the 2014 NFC Championship game that killed two women, and another that killed a little girl out trick-or-treating on Halloween that year.
“We want to end all fatal collisions, but this particular grant is focused on the impaired-driving aspect of it, because we know if we can impact that, we can heavily impact the final outcome,” Neal said.
From 2010 to 2014, more than 3,000 drivers were involved in fatal crashes in Washington, according to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. Of those drivers, more than a third tested positive for alcohol or drugs.
