Riding shotgun with Wisconsin State Patrol during holiday week enforcement

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Safety is top of mind for the Wisconsin State Patrol as they look to keep highways safe throughout a busy holiday travel week.

They are ramping up patrol efforts to cut down on speeding, reckless driving, and impaired driving.

We went on a ride along with State Patrol Sgt. Nicholas Lorenzen in Jefferson County on Tuesday, Nov. 26, to get a behind-the-scenes look at their efforts.

Almost immediately after meeting up with Sgt. Lorenzen, he was dispatched to provide support at a speeding stop.

The trooper that made the stop said the car smelled of marijuana, and the driver had a record of driving under the influence of weed.

She also had a revoked license.

Sgt. Lorenzen explained the trooper had reason to search her car, and she was cited for speeding and driving on the revoked license.

But her passenger did have a valid license, so the troopers worked with them to get them on their way. She'll have a court date down the road.

Sgt. Lorenzen told us, "We're just not going to make the arrest and take her to jail tonight."

It was one of several stops along a packed I-94 as the State Patrol monitored holiday traffic.

A few minutes later, Sgt. Lorenzen's radar caught a speeder "just touching 90."

Reckless driving and speed are among their biggest concerns.

In 2019, about 580 State Patrol incidents involved drivers going more than 100 mph. It nearly tripled the next year and has gone up every year since.

At the speeding stop, Sgt. Lorenzen told the driver, "We're out here tonight, aggressive, trying to look for speeding, reckless driving."

She was an 18-year-old college student heading home, and said she was trying to keep up with the flow of traffic.

This time, she got a warning, as Sgt. Lorenzen explained to us he thought it would be more beneficial to give her "a little bit of education and give her a little bit more of a positive experience."

But a short time later, there was a much less ambiguous situation: a crash.

The driver told Lorenzen, "I clipped him. I slammed on my brakes. It happened kinda fast."

But as she explained to him she was changing lanes when she hit the other car, he noticed something about her.

He asked the driver, "Did you have any alcohol to drink?" She told him, "I did, I had one before I came on the road."

The troopers talked amongst themselves, saying she had "slurred speech." "She's got sluggish eyes, glassy eyes."

Instead of conducting field sobriety tests in the cold, the law allows troopers to safely transport people elsewhere.

So they took the woman to a nearby police station for testing.

Sgt. Lorenzen told us, "These are exactly the kind of issues we're out here for."

The elevated enforcement does not stop with Thanksgiving, because Friday is also one of the busiest days of the year.