Troopers Urge families to plan ahead when traveling during the holidays. When you fail to plan, you are more prone to poor decision-making when driving.

Baton Rouge – The Thanksgiving holiday is traditionally one of the busiest travel times of the year. During the 2021 Thanksgiving holiday week, Louisiana highways saw 505 fatal and injury crashes that resulted in 18 deaths and 810 injuries. In an effort to reduce the number of traffic fatalities during America’s most popular travel holiday, Louisiana State Police will be working alongside our local law enforcement partners in the Click it or Ticket campaign.

The Click it or Ticket campaign, coordinated by the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission, puts additional law enforcement personnel on the roads November 19 – 27, to enforce Louisiana’s mandatory seat belt law. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that proper seat belt use reduces the risk of fatal injury to front seat passengers by 45 percent, and the risk of moderate to serious injury by 50 percent. This holiday season, Troopers will be focusing on seatbelt use for adults and especially for those child passengers who should be restrained in an NHTSA-approved carseat. Louisiana law requires that all occupants be properly restrained regardless of their age or seating position. While not all crashes are survivable, seatbelts can greatly increase the occupant’s chance of surviving a serious crash and may greatly reduce the extent of injury. Troopers urge all drivers and passengers in motor vehicles to heed the warning and remember that failure to buckle up can turn the happiest of holidays into a nightmare.

Troopers utilizing both fully marked and unmarked patrol vehicles will also be targeting aggressive and impaired drivers this holiday season. Of the 505 Thanksgiving holiday fatal and injury crashes in Louisiana last year, 38 were alcohol related. If you are found driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, you will be arrested. There is a direct correlation between driving while intoxicated, lack of proper restraint use, and reckless operation, to traffic fatalities. Motorists are reminded that alcohol has many effects on the body. Alcohol can impair vision, alter your sense of time and space, and impair the fine motor skills needed to safely operate a motor vehicle. As little as one drink can cause these effects.

This holiday season, Louisiana citizens and visitors to our state are encouraged to take advantage of the Louisiana Traveler Information System available via the 511 phone system, http://www.511la.org, and the LA DOTD Twitter account. The traveler information system allows access to valuable resources such as current road reports on crashes and construction, ferry status updates, and even real time traffic camera views, depending on which modality you choose.

Motorists that witness hazardous road conditions and/or reckless drivers are urged to call *LSP (*577) and report that activity to the nearest Louisiana State Police Troop location.

The Louisiana State Police wishes everyone a SAFE and HAPPY Thanksgiving holiday.

Contact Information:
TPR. Christian Reed
Louisiana State Police
Public Affairs Section
Office: (225) 754-8524
Christian.Reed2@la.gov

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