Ep. 47 - Highway Patrol and Happy Holidays

This week, we’re talking about one of the most overlooked parts of holiday driving: the men and women out on the road keeping everyone safe when risk is at its highest. December brings family, celebration, and travel — but it also brings more DUIs, more drowsy drivers, and more people rushing on limited sleep.

I share a late-night moment on Highway 50 here in Central Florida that reminded me how easily danger hides in plain sight… and how quickly a trained officer can pick up what the rest of us miss.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
 • Why Highway Patrol and local police double enforcement from Thanksgiving through New Year’s
 • How officers spot impaired, drowsy, or distracted drivers that look “normal” to everyone else
 • Why “dark drivers” with no headlights are more common — and more dangerous — than you think
 • What my years as a traffic reporter taught me about how troopers actually work behind the scenes
 • How simply moving over, slowing down, or giving space literally helps them stay alive
 • The specific times of day when risks spike (midnight–3 a.m., Friday evenings, pre-holiday rush)
 • Simple holiday-season habits that drastically reduce your risk

This is one of the most important episodes of the year — a reminder that those blue lights aren’t just enforcing laws. They’re protecting families, saving lives, and keeping the holidays intact for the rest of us.

If you have your own story of a trooper showing up at the perfect time, send it my way: FreewayTrafficExpert@gmail.com

Drive smart. Stay safe. And catch you next week.

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Opener Story: Episode 47
• 0:32 Introduction
• 1:16 Danger on The Road
• 2:16 How State Troopers and Highway Patrol See the Road
• 3:36 Why The Podcast Lessons Matter during the Holidays
• 4:41 Do Your Part this Holiday Season
• 5:27 CTA - Your Feedback!

Transcript

I was driving home from work late one night a few weeks ago, taking a side street I thought would be safer, quieter, calmer, fewer people on the road. Then in my rearview mirror, I caught something moving in the dark. No lights, no reflection, just a silent shape gliding down the pavement behind me. For a second, I couldn't even tell if it was a car or a shadow.

Mastering the Commute, your six-minute traffic fix. Episode 47, Highway Patrol Holiday Enforcement.

The holidays bring out the best in people, family, lights, celebration, but also the riskiest moments behind the wheel. December is when law enforcement moves into full force. From Thanksgiving through New Year's, Highway Patrol and local officers double up on DUI checkpoints, overnight patrols, and crash response units.

Why? Because they've seen the same story every year. The office party guest who insists they're fine. The driver racing across town to make the last store before it closes. The long-haul worker nodding off after a 14-hour shift.

It's not about punishment. It's about prevention. Every trooper would rather make a stop that feels unnecessary than make a call no family should ever get on Christmas Eve.

The most dangerous drivers aren't always the obvious ones. The drunk driver doesn't always swerve. Sometimes they're just slow to react. The drowsy driver can keep a straight line right until they drift off. And the dark driver, the one with no headlights that I see pretty much every day here in Central Florida, they can blend into the road like a ghost.

That night on Highway 50, I saw exactly that. I was driving for several miles when I realized that was a moving vehicle with no lights behind me. Then as I stopped at the next light, I noticed a local police cruiser rolling up right beside me. I started to lower my window to tell her there was a car behind us driving completely dark. Before I could say a word, she nodded. The light turned green and her flashers lit up the intersection. She sped off to intercept it.

That small exchange said everything to me. They're already watching. They see what we don't. And often, the only thing standing between that unseen danger and a deadly crash is the person in that patrol car.

State troopers read the road differently than we do. To them, the road is a living pulse. Every lane change, every brake tap, every wobble in the line tells a story. They look for the car that hesitates when the light turns green, the one that rides the center line, or the one creeping five miles under the speed limit with one headlight out. Some of those might be fatigue, distraction, impairment, or all three.

During the holidays, they work longer hours and more overnight shifts because they know when the risk spikes. Midnight to 3 a.m., the after-party window. They also watch the evening rush on Fridays when people start their road trips already exhausted from work. Their goal isn't to hand out tickets. It's to give everyone else on that road a chance to get home alive.

And honestly, a lot of the appreciation I have for them comes from my years doing traffic reports. Night after night, I’d be sitting in a studio or in a helicopter, watching the map light up with incidents while listening to troopers and dispatchers talk on the radio. Most of what they did never made it into my reports. You might hear, “minor crash on the shoulder, no major delays,” but what I was really hearing was someone calmly walking up to a shaken driver, putting flares on the ground, blocking a lane with their cruiser so that car didn’t get hit again.

From your perspective, that’s just “slowing down for some lights on the side of the road.” From theirs, it’s standing three feet from seventy-mile-an-hour traffic, hoping everyone sees them in time.

That’s why those little things we talk about on this show matter so much more during the holidays. When you actually move over a full lane for a stopped patrol car, when you tap the brakes a little earlier, when you decide not to make that last aggressive pass to beat the exit ramp, you’re not just avoiding a ticket. You’re taking some of the weight off the people who have to show up when things go wrong.

And the truth is, just their presence changes how the whole freeway behaves. You’ve seen it: a trooper merges on, and suddenly the ripple of speeding eases up. People leave a little more space. For a few miles, everyone drives the way we say we should drive all year long. Imagine if we didn’t need the lights in the mirror to remind us to do that.

Now it's easy to forget that officers behind those lights have families too. While most of us are opening gifts or sitting around the table, they're patrolling in the cold, standing in the median at 2 a.m. or comforting someone who just lost a loved one minutes before Christmas morning. When you see those blue lights this month, think about that. Their presence might be inconvenient for a moment, but it's often the reason someone else gets to celebrate another year.

Here's how you can do your part this season. Plan ahead. If there's any chance you'll drink, line up a ride before you go. Rest first. A 20-minute nap before a late drive can save your life. Slow your schedule. Leave early so you don't race the clock. Light check. Walk around your car before you leave. Headlights, brake lights, turn signals. Visibility saves lives.

And stay alert for others. If someone's weaving, fading, or dark, back off and give them room. Of course, call 911 if you think it's serious. The best gift you can give this holiday season is everyone getting home safely. Stay calm, stay aware, and remember, the Highway Patrol isn't just enforcing the law. They're protecting the light that makes the holidays matter.

Have you ever seen a police officer or Highway Patrol roll up right at the perfect time? I want to hear your story. Email me at FreewayTrafficExpert at gmail.com. Drive smart, stay safe, and catch you next week.