Highways congested; Idaho State Police increase patrols

Memorial Day weekend is one of the busiest holiday weekends of the year.

AAA said about 34.8 million people are taking trips and predicts people will be traveling less by airplane and more by car.

A little more than half of the weekend travelers have already hit the road, and Idaho State Police say a couple of highway crashes slowed down traffic slightly.

” Yesterday wasn’t too bad, we didn’t have any fatalities or major crashes, but we did have several that interrupted the traffic flow,” said ISP Sgt. Chris Elverud.

With an estimated 164,000 Idahoans expected to travel during the holiday, ISP Sgt. Elverud said they’ve increased patrols on all roadways with troopers working overtime shifts.

“Highway 20 from here to Rexburg and I-15 down towards Blackfoot are our major high-crash areas,” said Elverud. “We focus on those to be seen out there so we can be proactive in getting people to slow down when they see us.”

From camping, swimming, even ATV-ing in the sand dunes are popular activities this weekend — but in order to get there, expect heavy traffic.

“Especially in the rural areas at this time, there’s a lot of people. In the rural areas, the highways are smaller so we get a lot of crashes in the Island Park and Swan Valley areas,” said Elverud.

So where are people going this Memorial Day weekend? AAA did a survey and found the number one destination is to visit family and friends.

ISP said if you see an impaired or a drowsy driver, call the ISP Hotline at *477.