CHP - Impaired Driving Section

Here we have Impaired Driving Section Officer Barawed, teaching the CNS Depressant block at our Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) school currently in progress in Monterey. Officer Barawed is one of our DRE Course Managers.
DRE Course Managers travel away from their families for two weeks at a time, several times a year in order to bring this training to law enforcement officers statewide. It takes a strong commitment to our mission and a very supportive family to do the job!
We are so glad to have him as a part of our team!

The CHP Impaired Driving Section is currently training officers in the Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) course, hosted by the Naval Postgraduate School Police Department. This specialized training equips officers with the tools and knowledge needed to identify drug-impaired drivers and take appropriate enforcement action.

By investing in advanced training like the DRE program, the CHP continues to take proactive steps toward removing impaired drivers from our roadways—helping keep our highways safe and preventing tragedies before they occur.

Today, May 4, 2026, Sergeant R. Smith of the Impaired Driving Section (IDS) was honored to be a guest speaker at the California District Attorneys Association roundtable. He shared insights on current impairment research, upcoming training initiatives, and stressed the importance of Drug Recognition Experts. The attendance of Assistant Chief L. Depee and Captain E. Johnson underscored the strong leadership support for our mission: Eliminating DUI driving in California through education and enforcement.

This past weekend, instructors from Impaired Driving Section had the privilege of evaluating 32 explorer teams for the DUI scenario at the 2026 State Capitol Explorer Challenge, held at the CHP - Academy.

We were quite impressed with the skill and dedication of these great teams of explorers from all over the state! We hope to see them as cadets at our Academy in the future!

Yesterday (4-27-26), members of IDS met the new cadet class for the first time. This begins over 120 hours of formal instruction (and probably just as much study and practice!) that they will receive from our unit over the course of the next six months.
The introduction started with a video detailing the perils of driving under the influence followed by IDS Captain Johnson stressing to the cadets the importance of DUI enforcement as well as the need for them to apply maximum effort in their studies.
The cadets also met their primary instructors as well as several other instructors from IDS.
We look forward to watching these cadets develop over the next six months!

CHP - Academy

CHP - East Sacramento Officer Johnston doing great work catching this person driving under the influence and in possession of a loaded firearm! A potential tragedy averted.

24/7, CHP officers are out there looking for impaired drivers.

Every CHP officer is required to be trained in Standardized Field Sobriety Testing (SFST) while in the academy. Within their first year as an officer, they are required to complete Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement (ARIDE). ARIDE is a class that builds on SFST and introduces driving under the influence of drugs and gives the officers more tools for detecting drivers impaired by drugs. These are both Departmentally imposed requirements because of our commitment to combatting impaired driving on California's roadways.

Kudos to this new officer on their first phase of training recognizing an impaired driver and taking them off the road, making California roadways safer! We are so proud of them!
Seems like only yesterday our unit was training this officer in DUI detection at the CHP - Academy (ok, maybe it was a month or so ago...)

Did you know CHP cadets spend about 120 hours with our unit while in the academy? We cover topics such as DUI detection, field sobriety testing, drug identification, drug laws and report writing. Those hours don't even include all the practice and studying they have to do.

Are you interested in removing impaired drivers from California roadways? Looking for a rewarding career? Check out CHP - Careers or go to https://chpmadeformore.com for more info.

CHP - Susanville out making the roads of our beautiful state safer, one DUI arrest at a time!

Do you have a DUI problem in your area? Do officers at your agency need training in Standardized Field Sobriety Testing (SFST) or Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement (ARIDE)?

Shoot us an email at [email protected] and let's see if we can get training set up in your area!

This week, Impaired Driving Section ran two separate alcohol correlation studies at the CHP - Academy for Cadet Training Class (CTC) V-25. It is an "All hands on-deck" operations which brings all of the instructors from IDS as well as instructors from outside the unit. We had the pleasure of having a Captain, Lieutenant and a Sergeant from CHP HQ who maintain their instructor status, as well as CHP officers from the field and an officer from San Francisco Police Department.
This is a tremendous undertaking with such a large class, but it went smoothly due to the efforts of the experienced instructors. All cadets passed their initial signoffs and did very well at the workshop. In a few short weeks, they will be out on the roads of our state putting their training to the test, removing impaired drivers from our roadways!

Last week, IDS wrapped up our third Drug Recognition Expert School of 2026 (Fourth of the 25/26 OTS grant year). We started with 14 students and all 14 passed the course! They will now move on to the field certification phase of training.

This class was hosted by Rocklin Police Department. The Course Manager was IDS Officer Pierman and Lead Instructor was Officer Stayer from CHP - Auburn. Several other instructors from IDS taught during the course, as did officers from CHP - South Lake Tahoe, CHP - Bishop, CHP - East Sacramento, CHP - Santa Cruz, CHP HQ and a Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutor from the Orange County DA's office.

The course was funded by a grant from California Office of Traffic Safety with support from International Association of Chiefs of Police and NHTSA.