The feeding frenzy enjoyed by Washington State Patrol troopers in their unmarked cars continues, with an ever-increasing number of aggressive drivers being caught.

The arrests will likely only go up -- the State Patrol will add a dozen cars devoted to nabbing aggressive drivers.

"We're more aware, and we're looking for these drivers," Trooper Keith Trowbridge said.

Trowbridge is one of the handful of troopers assigned to the aggressive-driver apprehension team, created in 1998 to combat a growing number of road-rage incidents.

Initially, King and Pierce counties were the targets, but federal grants allowed the state patrol to expand the program across Washington.

Troopers assigned to this program look for motorists committing multiple violations, from speeding to HOV violations, to weaving in and out of traffic.

Since the beginning of the year, 19 unmarked cars, from SUVs to station wagons, have roamed the state's freeways, looking for drivers committing multiple violations.

But enough federal grant money has been obtained to allow the state to buy 12 unmarked cars for the program before the year is out, Trooper Kurt Adkinson said.

In the last 12 months, contacts with aggressive drivers have increased 56 percent, Adkinson said.

From August 2002 through July 2003 troopers pulled over 37,120 drivers statewide and issued 46,170 citations to those drivers, some of them getting more than one ticket.

From January, 2003 through the end of July, troopers in King County have stopped 4,767 motorists for driving aggressively and issued them 5,724 tickets.

And despite the fact that the members of the aggressive driving team make up less than 2 percent of the troopers on the road, they account for 17 percent of the aggressive-driver stops.

Trowbridge has been one of the troopers assigned to the aggressive driving program for about a year and a half.

"There's not one trooper that doesn't like to get these drivers," Trowbridge said.

On the inside, the cars have radar and cameras to monitor drivers, but on the outside, the vehicles have little to give away the identity of the trooper behind the wheel -- there are no obvious wires, no light bar on the roof and not even the tax-exempt license plates.

"I'm trying to blend in," Trowbridge said.

Sometimes, that makes him as likely a target of aggressive motorists as anyone else on the road.

"They tailgate me, too," he said. "They think I'm just another motorist, and they treat me with the same disrespect they treat everyone else."

The vehicles do have light bars in the grills, and all the troopers driving them are in uniform, so motorists know they are being pulled over by an actual state trooper.

If in doubt, Sgt. Monica Hunter said, motorists can call 911 to verify that a trooper pulling them over in an unmarked car is, in fact, legitimate.

"The dispatchers know what stops we're on," Hunter said.

Although some of the motorists Trowbridge stops are chagrined, many others insist they did nothing wrong.

Trowbridge remembers one man he pulled over twice just a month apart, both times for negligent driving.

"I pulled him over and said, 'Man, this guy looks familiar,' " Trowbridge recalled.

"He was one of those guys who didn't think he did anything wrong. The only way to reach him was through the ticket."

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Reproduced on the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety media page; September 9, 2003.