Drivers heading out this holiday week will notice more Washington State Patrol troopers on major roads, as AAA projects a record number of people to travel.
“We live in Vancouver, Washington, and we’re going up to Mount Vernon to visit my daughter for the holidays,” said Brett Thompson.
Another traveler, Luann Larson Hammond, said she was coming from Arizona to see family.
With more cars on highways and drivers heading toward mountain passes, the Washington State Patrol is increasing enforcement.
Trooper Rick Johnson with WSP said the goal is to keep roads safe during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
From Christmas Eve 2023 to New Year’s Day, Johnson said their troopers made 67 DUI arrests and responded to roughly 200 crashes.
During the same time frame for the 2024–25 holiday period, troopers made 66 DUI arrests and responded to about the same number of crashes. None of those crashes were deadly.
“We want to obviously have no fatalities again,” Johnson said. “And we want people — there’s so many options these days, Uber, Lyft, taxi — to get from point A to point B.”
Johnson said troopers use geo-mapping to patrol intelligently, focusing on areas where the majority of crashes and impaired driving arrests occur.
“We just want people to be safe on the roadways,” Johnson said. “And we’ll be out there looking. Our job is to keep that roadway safe.”
Troopers are also reminding drivers to slow down and pay attention. In one weekend alone, multiple troopers across the Puget Sound area were hit while responding to different scenes.
“This is a tragic reminder for all the troopers out there that this is definitely a possibility,” Johnson said. “Not only do we have to pay attention to what we’re doing, whether it’s stopping a car, what’s going on in there, but also the cars that are coming at us. That’s why the law was enacted — move over or slow down. Drop your speed, move over if you can.”
©2025 Cox Media Group
