Travel and safety tips for the upcoming Christmas and New Year’s holidays

With Christmas and New Years Day each falling on a Tuesday this year, most families may be planning one or both holidays into a four-day event and traveling out of the area or staying near home and celebrating locally. Long holiday weekends generally means more motorists traveling on our state’s roadways thus increasing the calls for service for our agency. Please assist us with our highway safety efforts this holiday season by always driving with safety in mind first, being courteous to others motorists, and never drink and drive.

If your highway travel destinations will be taking you over any of the mountain passes, please check the latest road controls by dialing 511 or go online to www.nevadadot.com as there are several winter storms forecasted in our region this weekend. Speed too fast for conditions is the most common contributing factor of crashes when roads are wet, icy or snow covered. Motorists should always adjust their driving habits to the current roadway and weather conditions and create a safer following distance with other vehicles to minimize an unplanned event when the driving conditions become a challenge. It’s much safer to slow down and arrive to your destination a little late as opposed to rushing to your destination and risking a speeding ticket or motor vehicle collision.

The Nevada Highway Patrol will be increasing staffing levels on both holiday weekends with a larger contingency of troopers planned during the New Year’s Eve timeframe. A portion of the additional staffing costs are being offset by a federally funded “Joining Forces” grant secured by the Nevada Office of Traffic Safety. Additional troopers will be assigned to saturate various highways in northern Nevada looking for drivers who commit egregious violations as well as identifying impaired drivers.

To add awareness and education to this effort, we are planning and announcing a DUI checkpoint in the Reno area this Saturday evening. Several police officers, sheriff’s deputies and troopers from our local law enforcement agencies will be teaming up for this event. This checkpoint is also being funded by the “Joining Forces” grant.

In an effort to reduce our alcohol-related calls for service this holiday season, we are asking everyone to plan their festive celebrations safely and responsibly. If you plan on consuming any amount of alcohol, don’t get behind the wheel of a vehicle and drive. Plan ahead and identify a safe and sober person in advance to get you home safely; not the person in your group who has consumed the fewest drinks. If you see an impaired driver on the highway, please report it to us by dialing *NHP (*647) from your cell phone or (775) 687-0400. Those calls will be answered directly by one of our dispatchers in the Department of Public Safety-Communications Center.

Zero is our goal for statewide fatalities so let’s all work together and make it zero DUI arrests and zero DUI crashes this holiday season.

On behalf of the entire staff of NHP-Northern Command West, we would like to wish everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday season.

— Trooper Chuck Allen is a public information officer for the Nevada Highway Patrol