On a warm summer day, Officer Chad Streiff cruised through an Eden Prairie neighborhood looking for an impaired driver. Then he saw it — an SUV parked awkwardly in an apartment lot, the driver’s door hanging open and a woman struggling to get out. Just down the road a block, a child pedaled home on a bicycle.

It was a close call — and a powerful reminder of how quickly things can go wrong on Minnesota roads.  

Summer isn’t over, and that means extra law enforcement patrols are out in full force across the state to save lives and reduce traffic fatalities. To see what’s happing firsthand during the “100 deadliest days” of summer, I joined Officer Chad Streiff for a ride-along.

Eden Prairie has seen startling speeds on their roads this summer. They stopped a driver going more than 120 miles per hour just a few weeks prior to Streiff giving me a ride on his usual shift.

Streiff’s job is to catch bad drivers before they hurt themselves or someone else, and in his 17 years of law enforcement, he’s seen more than a few. It’s that experience that tells him to be ready for dangerous driving in the summer.

“Weather affects people’s driving a lot: If it’s really nice out people tend to speed up, if it’s kinda gloomy people have a tendency to slow down,” Streiff said. “That being said today (a rainy day), I had someone pass me going 89 (mph) as I was coming into work that I had to stop.”

On my ride with him, Streiff stopped seven drivers for everything from speeding to too much window tint. His work has made him eagle-eyed, quick to catch bad driving behaviors.  While we talked about the details of his job, a call for a possible intoxicated driver comes out over the radio. A civilian driver spotted a woman with a bottle of alcohol in hand while driving.

Streiff steered us through suburban streets in search of the vehicle. 

His powerful attention to detail paid off. On a quiet street, he spotted something suspicious in an apartment parking lot just off the road.

“That looks like it,” he said and sure enough, looking closer I saw a small SUV that met the description.  As we pulled up, a female driver, clearly intoxicated, struggled to put the car in park. 

Streiff turned on his lights, radioed for backup and approached the vehicle. He quickly put the car in park to stop her from drifting back and hurting him or damaging property. Other officers rushed in to help get her out of the vehicle. Nearby, the same child road his bike home for the night. 

“When drivers ignore their responsibilities, it’s gambling with all of our lives,” said our Office of Traffic Safety Director Mike Hanson. "But when drivers speak up and report dangerous behavior, they become part of the solution. The person who called to report an impaired driver didn’t just make a call — they may have saved a life.”

Officers like Streiff are out working all summer in Minnesota. Their hope is simple: stop the rise in traffic deaths on Minnesota roads — one shift at a time.