CHP beginning its Thanksgiving weekend ‘maximum enforcement period’ Wednesday night
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. - California Highway Patrol (CHP) is set to begin its Thanksgiving weekend Maximum Enforcement Period on Wednesday night.
The five-day long period will start on Wednesday, Nov. 27 at 6:01 p.m. and will run through Sunday, Dec. 1 at 11:59 p.m.
"All available officers that work for the California Highway Patrol are going to be on the roadways, trying to keep everybody safe to get to their destinations for this Thanksgiving holiday," said CHP Public Information Officer Jordan Richards.
CHP said the purpose of the time is to focus on violations that lead to traffic collisions as well as reduce the number of injury or fatal collisions throughout the state.
"Our main focus this Thanksgiving maximum enforcement period is seatbelts," said Richards. "Please wear your seatbelts. We've had multiple crashes here within the last couple of weeks where some of our passengers weren't wearing their seatbelts, and they're not going to be able to celebrate this Thanksgiving holiday. Also, stay with within the speed limit. Do not drive distracted, and for no reason, please do not drive impaired. There's so many different, car sharing programs that you can get to avoid driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs."
During the special period, additional staffing will in place, and extra patrol cars will be visible on all roadways within CHP jurisdiction.
"You'll definitely see a lot more CHP officers as there's going to be more vehicle traffic on our roadways this year compared to last year," said Richards. "There's actually about 1,000 more CHP officers that were hired the last two years, so you should see quite a few black and white patrol vehicles on our highways trying to keep everybody safe this Thanksgiving holiday."
The start of the maximum enforcement period begins just as traffic on Central Coast roadways are beginning to feel the impact of the holiday travel.
"You're going to see that the 101 freeway, and all our connectors, the 166, the 46, the 41 to the 99 to the I-5 are just going to be jam packed with cars," said Richards. "That's just the way this season goes, and I really highly recommend that you get ahead of the traffic, which is tonight starting tonight. Wednesday night is going to be our heaviest traffic during the entire week, except for Sunday. On Sunday, everybody's coming back from the holiday weekend, and it's going to be jam packed on all of those major highways coming back home."
