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Alex Cabrero Reporting"When you start consuming alcohol, the first thing that goes is your judgement."
They're out there tonight, extra police patrols looking for drunk drivers who could harm you and your family.
More than a quarter million Utahns plan to go somewhere else this weekend. We have tips for your trip.
Holiday weekends are a time for families and friends to get together and have fun. Often, that fun includes drinking alcohol and sometimes that alcohol mixed with driving brings accidents and death.
The holiday has officially been celebrated for 112 years now, about as long as it seems the don't drink and drive message has been hammered into our heads, and yet, unfortunately, people still do.
Every single day, Sergeant Tyler Kotter has just one mission, to keep the rest of us safe.
Tyler Kotter: "Fatality crashes where alcohol is involved, that is senseless."
For three years now, he's been on the Utah Highway Patrols DUI squad, which makes him perfectly qualified to cringe whenever holidays arrive.
Sgt. Tyler Kotter, Utah Highway Patrol: "I guess the notion is it's a holiday weekend. They're gonna get out and get together with family and friends, and part of that is imbibing certain substances, and one of them is alcohol."
Alcohol, the legal drink that's illegal to drive a vehicle with if you've had too much.
Tyler Kotter: "Unfortunately it's a common thing."
Kotter knows all too well, alcohol affects more than just the person who drinks it. All he has to do is think back to a DUI crash he was sent to where a man died.
Tyler Kotter: "Myself and another couple of troopers and a sergeant had to go to make notification to his family, to his wife, and to his mom and dad, that he wasn't coming home."
It's part of why whenever he sees a driver do something odd, he pulls them over just to make sure alcohol isn't the reason why.
Tyler Kotter: "Removing them from the road, possible saving their life, as well as the motoring public's life. That's the greatest satisfaction I get out of it."
The UHP received federal funds and checks from local businesses to help pay for all the overtime troopers will be working this weekend. When you break it down, it's not really up to the troopers to keep us safe, it's up to all of us as individuals.
Troopers will also be looking for drivers who don't follow new express lane rules. It affects the 38 miles of I-15 from 600 North in Salt Lake to University Parkway in Orem.
Carpoolers and a limited number of drivers who pay 60-dollars a month for the privilege can use the lanes, but you can only enter and exit at the broken white line.
