Mississippi Highway Patrol Troop M’s nine-county area was quietby most standards, recording no fatalities and only five collisionsover the Thanksgiving holiday.

Troop M’s five collisions were the lowest of all the state’sdistricts recorded over the time between Wednesday at 6 p.m. andSunday at midnight. By contrast, however, their 32 DUI arrests werethe highest of all the districts.

“It was a lot of work, staying out there, and the guys beingdedicated to trying to locate the impaired drivers,” said Troop MPublic Affairs Officer Sgt. Rusty Boyd. “Hopefully that hadsomething to do with the low number of collisions and nofatalities.”

Boyd said Troop M’s area recorded no alcohol-related collisions,and only two injuries in the five accidents, while issuing a grandtotal of 939 citations. They also tied with Troop F for the highestnumber of drug arrests over the weekend, with four.

They also issued 31 citations for seat belt and improper childrestraint.

Troop M’s men like to think of themselves as the best on theroad, Boyd said. On top of that, circumstances also kept thenumbers positive this year, he said.

“It’s probably a little bit of everything that makes for a goodweekend like this, we like to think our efforts paid off, but thebiggest part of the time, a lot of it is luck and divineintervention,” Boyd said. “But we like to think we’re the bestdistrict in the state. We’ve got some good guys who are dedicatedto public safety.”

While troopers canvassed the entire district, they did havecertain focal points, Boyd said.

“We had details all over the district at some point during theholiday, but we did hit the areas where we had a lot of wrecks inthat are known for impaired drivers,” he said. “We felt like we hada good holiday, and we’re blessed we didn’t have as many collisionsas we could. We’re gearing up for Christmas and New Year’s.”