  We present a sample of 33 damped Lyman alpha systems (DLAs) discovered in the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) whose absorption redshifts (z_abs) are within
6000 km/s of the QSO's systemic redshift (z_sys). Our sample is based on 731
2.5 < z_sys < 4.5 non-broad-absorption-line (non-BAL) QSOs from Data Release 3
(DR3) of the SDSS. We estimate that our search is ~100 % complete for absorbers
with N(HI) >= 2e20 cm^-2. The derived number density of DLAs per unit redshift,
n(z), within v < 6000 km/s is higher (3.5 sigma significance) by almost a
factor of 2 than that of intervening absorbers observed in the SDSS DR3, i.e.
there is evidence for an overdensity of galaxies near the QSOs. This provides a
physical motivation for excluding DLAs at small velocity separations in surveys
of intervening 'field' DLAs. In addition, we find that the overdensity of
proximate DLAs is independent of the radio-loudness of the QSO, consistent with
the environments of radio-loud and radio-quiet QSOs being similar.
