Thanksgiving travelers may have to sit through traffic before seeing their families and stuffing their faces this year.
A projected 46.3 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more during the holiday weekend — the largest number of Thanksgiving travelers since 2007, according to the American Automobile Association.
About 2.3 million Floridians will travel this week, and the association predicts about 90 percent will do so by car as gas prices are currently below $3 per gallon.
The drop in gas prices is the lowest AAA spokesman Mark Jenkins said the association has seen in four years.
“Falling gas prices are helping to boost disposable income and consumer spending,” Jenkins said. “People have a little more money in their pockets and that’s probably going to encourage people to travel more and spend more money.”
To compensate for increased travelers, Florida Highway Patrol is sending out all of its officers to monitor major interstates throughout the week, said Sergeant Tracy Pace, public affairs officer for Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Troop B.
“Everybody needs to get out on the road because we know when holidays occur there are obviously more people on the road, and it takes all of us to get out there and keep the roadways safe for the motorists,” she said.
Pace helps monitor her troop’s nine counties, which include both Alachua and Marion County. She said Interstate-75 and Interstate-10 typically have the most problems throughout the holidays because of the large amount of traffic.
“We pretty much just saturate the interstate as much as possible,” she said.
Last year’s Thanksgiving weekend saw 13 crashes occur on I-75 in Alachua County, which included 15 injuries. None of the accidents between Nov. 28 and Dec. 1 were fatalities, Pace said.
“I never like to say any crash is good but it could always be worse,” she said.
A total of about 4,773 accidents were reported statewide during last year’s Thanksgiving weekend, and Pace said 29 of those crashes involved fatalities.
Pace said holiday travelers should make sure their cars are working properly, familiarize themselves with the roadways and get plenty of sleep before driving long distances.
Drivers should keep jumper cables, a flashlight and a tangible map handy in case a GPS or phone doesn’t work, Pace said.
She encouraged drivers to follow the speed limit and be patient, calm and courteous when traveling.
“We don’t need some road rage. It’s not going to help anyone get anywhere faster,” she said. “Remember that everyone has some place they want to get to, and everybody has people that love them.”
Weather shouldn’t be an issue for travelers driving in Florida, even though a large winter storm is expected to hit northeastern states this week, said Miami National Weather Service specialist Bob Ebaugh.
But Ebaugh said the storm could affect air travel for Floridians.
“You have a lot of people traveling back and forth,” he said. “Depending on the timing of it and the severity of it, you can count on it having some sort of impact on the airlines.”
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 11/25/2014]
