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-Press Release, NC Department of Public Safety
In anticipation of the upcoming Christmas and New Year’s holidays, the State Highway Patrol is putting safe driving at the top of its Christmas wish list.
According to AAA, more than 112 million travelers are expected to leave home throughout the holiday period to spend time with family and friends. With this in mind, troopers across the state are focusing on driver behavior in an attempt to ensure everyone arrives safely to their intended destination.
Last year, troopers responded to 3,102 collisions between the dates of Dec. 24 through Jan. 2. Among those collisions, 716 were injury-related and 19 resulted in a fatality. This year, SHP hopes to decrease the number of collisions during the same time frame by focusing on violations such as excessive speeding, reckless driving, following too close and impaired driving.
“The Christmas season is a time to be shared with family and friends,” said Colonel Glenn McNeill Jr., commander of the State Highway Patrol. “Our priority is to reduce needless collisions before they occur in hopes of reporting zero lives lost throughout this holiday season.”
With the increase of distracted driving on the rise across the nation, the Patrol is also taking a proactive approach in reducing distracted driving collisions with the release of a Christmas PSA entitled Two Choices, Your Decision.
While there are several different types of distractions that affect safe driving, the PSA focuses on the dangers associated with texting while driving. The PSA can be obtained by visiting the SHP Facebook page or viewing this YouTube link https://youtu.be/-0S1yDxIOgA.