Wrong-way driver collides with Oregon State Police trooper on Beltline

A wrong-way driver struck an Oregon State Police trooper near River Road late Sunday night on the Randy Papé Beltline Highway, a crash that could have turned far worse on one of Eugene’s busiest corridors.

Eugene Police said officers were dispatched at 11:34 p.m. on May 10 after a report of a vehicle traveling eastbound in the westbound lanes of Beltline Highway. Moments later, Central Lane 911 relayed that an OSP trooper had been involved in a collision in the area of Beltline Highway and River Road and was trapped inside his vehicle.

By the time Eugene Police officers reached the scene, bystanders had already helped the trooper out of the vehicle. The wrong-way driver, later identified as 22-year-old Tanner Scott Scholer, had also gotten out of his vehicle and remained on scene. Both Scholer and the trooper suffered minor injuries, and neither was transported to the hospital.

Eugene Police arrested Scholer on charges of DUII and reckless driving. The trooper’s name has not been released. The case was logged under Eugene Police number 26-06975.

The Beltline stretch near River Road has been a repeated source of concern for drivers and police because wrong-way and suspected DUII crashes can turn a routine overnight patrol into a head-on collision in seconds. Local reporting has pointed to other serious crashes on the corridor, including a May 2024 Beltline wreck that critically injured two people.

That pattern gives Sunday’s crash a wider meaning for Lane County. Beltline carries a heavy mix of commuter traffic, freight, and local trips across Eugene, and late-night impaired driving on a divided highway leaves little margin for error. In this case, a trooper, bystanders, and the wrong-way driver all ended up outside their vehicles alive, a result that could easily have been far more severe given the speed and direction of travel involved.