Memorial Day Weekend marks the unofficial start of the summer travel season and that means two things: higher gas prices and extra patrols. Early birds Tom Malishaucki and his wife caught a break on the open road Thursday en route to Gatlinburg.
"You can tell by the way traffic is running, this is light," Malishaucki said. "This is great travel right now."
However, with more people expected on the roads come Friday, some drivers may be singing a different tune and not just when it comes to the number of travelers. Patricia Wolf is headed to Asheville Sunday. She paid $2.28 per gallon of gas Thursday to fill her tank.
"Summer's coming and people are going to drive more, so they just jack the prices up," Wolf said.
Nationwide, gas prices have increased every day for the last month. Still, the prices are not as bad as last Memorial day weekend. In 2008, the average Memorial Day Weekend price for a gallon of gas ranged from $3.74 to $3.86 in the Tri-Cities. Johnson City AAA Office Branch Manager Cecilia Campbell says she doesn't expect a huge jump in prices at the pump this summer.
"Nothing like last year," Campbell said.
Still, she believes drivers should prepare for a small increase.
Drivers should prepare for a much larger increase when it comes to the number of patrol cars on the highways. Dozens of agencies in North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee say each and every one of their officers will be on the roads this weekend. Those agencies kicked off their "Summer Heat" campaign Thursday in Fall Branch.
"We'll pull out all the stops from now until the end of Labor Day," THP Lt Col Tracy Trott said. "We'll have motorcycles, we'll have helicopters, we'll have all of our troopers out on the holiday weekends."
In the last two years, Trott says extra summer patrols have helped reduce Tennessee's annual highway fatality rate by 200 people. He hopes that trend continues this summer.
"We're working from year to year, month to month, trying to reduce the fatality level, trying to reduce the injury accidents, trying to increase our enforcement and visibility efforts so people know we're out there and drive safe and accordingly and really police themselves," Trott said.
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