Just as you can count on pumpkin pie and stuffing to go with your turkey dinner, state law officers while be out again this Thanksgiving week in a Special Traffic Enforcement Program (sTEP).

Randy Hunefeld, the coordinator of the program for the Department of Public Safety, says they will have about 250 city, county and state law officers working extra hours on the highways looking for violators. “That added enforcement, it’s no secret, we’ve been doing it for quite a few years,” Hunnefeld says.

He says having a bigger presence on the highways serves as a reminder for people to obey the traffic laws. Hunefeld says it does make a difference to have more officers out there, and he says it would be nice to have this many officers out year round to be sure that people are buckling up, and slowing down.

Hunefeld says the Thanksgiving holiday is not a big one for drunk driving arrests, but he says it is one where people seem to want to race to their relatives. He says a lot of people seem to be in a big hurry to drive to their destination. “Last year during this week long sTEP enforcement period, we had 13 fatalities, that’s not good,” Hunefeld says.

The effort starts today and will run through Sunday.