AUBURN – Police Chief Phil Crowell leaned in toward the driver of a pickup truck and gently asked for his license and registration.

“We just want to check to make sure nobody is out here driving with a suspended license,” he said before passing the paperwork on to another officer.

The driver looked nervous and irritated, but after 30 seconds, he was on his way again. On Thursday, only those driving drunk, with suspended licenses or with outstanding warrants had anything to worry about on Washington Street.

For four hours, nearly two dozen officers worked a roadblock near the New Gloucester line, stopping each car and truck heading into Auburn.

“We have identified suspended drivers as the No. 1 safety issue,” said Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion. “It’s been a big issue for our office.”

The matter of drivers with suspended licenses entered the spotlight last year after a woman was killed in a crash caused by a truck driver who had been suspended multiple times. There have been similar tragedies since.

But high profile cases aside, it seems suspended drivers are on the road everywhere.

Crowell said that in Auburn alone, there are 535 people with suspended licenses. One man has been suspended 36 times based on 48 convictions.

Hence the roadblock.

At 5 p.m., traffic was heavy in the northbound lane of Washington Street. Working in teams, the officers pulled over every vehicle that came by. While it might seem like a major disruption to commuter traffic, the average stop was under one minute.

The speedy checks were thanks to the mobile data terminals and miniature computers the officers used to check licenses and registrations.

“We can check all that information without having to call it in to the dispatchers,” said Auburn police Lt. Tim Cougle. “And we’ve got enough manpower to keep it moving right along.”

Dion said his department has been assembling suspended license roadblocks for the past 14 months. Roughly 270 people have been arrested. Dion has been working with other departments in the Portland area and now intends to push north with more roadblocks.

“This is as much about education as it is about arresting people,” Dion said.

And while the target of the operation is suspended drivers, others invariably get caught up in the police snare. At about 4:30 p.m. Thursday, an hour after the operation got under way, police arrested one man on an outstanding warrant and another was charged with driving drunk. The roadblock also snared a Lewiston man wanted for failing to appear in court on a charge of gross sexual conduct.

By the end of the operation, 500 cars had been stopped, police said. Two people were charged with driving with a suspended license and more than a dozen were cited for other infractions, including driving with expired licenses, suspended registrations and inspection stickers and possessing a useable amount of marijuana.

“It was a little bit of everything,” said Cougle, the Auburn police lieutenant.

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