The California Highway Patrol described Labor Day holiday weekend as rush hour traffic all weekend long.
Starting later Friday evening and through Monday night, the CHP will be in a maximum enforcement period where around 80% of all available officers will be patrolling the roadways.
CHP is expecting more people on the roadway this year, since many popular destinations are closed due to weather conditions, including national forests.
“Those destinations might not be somewhere where people are traveling to, which could very well mean we'll see a lot more influx of traffic here on the Central Coast,” said Officer Mike Poelking, the public information officer with the San Luis Obispo CHP.
In 2020, CHP made over 900 arrests for people driving under the influence and 46 people died in crashes over Labor Day weekend.
Officer Poelking said they are looking out for people driving under the influence but CHP is also watching out for aggressive driving, road rage, and unsafe merging.
He recommended making sure people keep a safe distance between cars and really prioritize wearing those seatbelts.
According to the CHP, they do not raise the price of tickets or fines because it is a holiday weekend. Those amounts depend on the county where the CHP officer pulled someone over.
