Labor Day Weekend travel safety tips

Prices are expected to be down for travelers this Labor Day weekend with travel projected to be up 9 percent from last year, according to AAA.

This evening, WXXV News 25’s Austin Lindsey has some travel and safety tips ahead of the long weekend.

Labor Day weekend signifies the last holiday break to cap off the summer season.

This means a busy and fun time for everyone to celebrate the off day, but being safe is the main priority when it comes to reaching your destination no matter how you travel.

Mississippi Marine Patrol Captain Michael Strickland said, “And when you know it’s going to be busy like this. There are a lot of boaters out there. Exercise little more patience, a little more caution. Keep your head on the swivel.”

Mississippi Highway Patrol PIO Landon Orozco said, “Check your vehicle before you leave, make sure it’s functioning properly and in good operational standards.”

Gulfport Biloxi Airport Executive Director Clay Williams said, “Well, I would recommend an hour and 15 minutes ahead of time. So we’d get here an hour and 15 ahead if you want to give yourself a little more time, an hour and a half, just to make sure that you’re not rushed, and make sure that you’ve packed your bags accordingly.”

Williams says the TSA expects August 30th to be the busiest day of the travel period with over 17 million passengers to travel by air over a six day span from the 29th to September 4th. All that aside, many locals and tourists will find a way to enjoy the weekend how they see fit, making for congested waterways, roads and airports.

“The Mississippi Gulf Coast offers a great recreational boating experience, and we always anticipate that holiday weekends are going to be visited more frequently, and we expect a higher volume of traffic, ” said Strickland.

“Last little summer get together that they may have. Also special for this weekend, it’s also the first weekend of football,” said Orozco.

“It’s being a leisure based market. We will have a lot of inbound travel over the weekend again, tomorrow, Friday, August 30, is expected to be the busiest day, but people are going to come here and they’re going to come here and they’re going to enjoy the beaches and golf and gaming and all the many tourism amenities that we have,” said Williams.

Last Labor Day weekend Mississippi Highway Patrol worked 147 crashes across the state, including 4 crashes with deaths.

MHP officials are warning drivers to watch out for others and to not drive under the influence.

“Find somebody to drive you, or find a different route to get home or back to wherever it was that you were going, rather than you drive impaired and risk the possibility of hurting yourself or somebody else will be off air patrolling, making sure that everybody enjoys the same experience, and it’s safe for everyone,” said Orozco.

“And we know that, factually, that when our boating under the influence, enforcement, goes up, boating incident goes down,” said Strickland.