Law enforcement heavily monitoring all major roads over holiday weekend

According to AAA, 40 million people will be traveling by car over the holiday weekend. Sgt. Paul Reinsch with the Missouri State Highway Patrol said he expected traffic to be heavy until midnight.

This year, a combined effort as part of Operate CARE had troopers stationed every 20 miles on Interstates 29, 44 ,55 and 70 and Highways 60 and 61.

This weekend last year, one person was killed or injured every 14 minutes on the road in Missouri.

Wednesday night, ABC 17 News asked 20 travelers at two truck stops in Kingdom City about road conditions so far on their trip.

Each vehicle carried an average of two people and were driving an average of 250 miles.

While driving through Mid-Missouri, they saw roughly seven police cars.

The majority of travelers were either from or traveling to either Kansas City or St. Louis and tell me both cities were congested with traffic. Most of those people had already seen at least one car accident on their road trip.

Reinsch said staying safe on the roads means slowing down.

“The No. 1 thing is to slow down and give space between cars, so if anything happens up ahead, you can stop in time,” he said.

Of the 20 travelers ABC 17 News talked to, more than half said they expected to be on the road until at least 11 p.m. Wednesday.