Mississippi Highway Patrol Troop M was happy to report safeholiday travel for the most part, officials said.

MHP Public Affairs Officer Sgt. Rusty Boyd said the holidayweekend was safe and quiet, much to the relief of Troop Mtroopers.

“We had our regular added line patrol and did even get someroadblocks in when we could, when the weather permitted,” hesaid.

For the Christmas holiday, which MHP considered to be from 6p.m. Friday, Dec. 21, to midnight of Tuesday, Dec. 25, there wereno fatalities in Troop M’s nine-county area. Only three werereported in the state.

Boyd said it’s always a relief when there are no fatalitiesreported in a troop’s area.

“We feel great about it,” he said. “It was by the grace of God,and we like to think our enforcement efforts have something to dowith it, too.”

In the area, there were 26 total collisions, with eight injuriesduring the holiday. None were reported as alcohol-related.

Boyd said there were fewer arrests for driving under theinfluence than usual in Troop M’s territory, but that it waspossible that the weather had something to do with that.

“The DUIs were a little lower than normal, we generally get afew more than that,” he said. “Saturday night we had storms tocontend with, and that probably hurt us a little. But we weregrateful that overall it was a good safe holiday.”

MHP recorded nine DUIs and three felony arrests among theirnumbers, with 807 citations written over the holidays. Troop M hadthe second-highest total of citations behind Troop C’s 996.