St. Patrick’s Day is this coming Sunday, and local law enforcement is ready to keep things safe during the popular “party holiday” with the help of the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau.

The next special Traffic Enforcement Program (sTEP) Wave is happening this week. Dallas County Sheriff Chad Leonard says the state pays the overtime hours for any agency that wants to take part, which allows them to have more officers out on the roads to cut down on impaired drivers. “It’s meant to go out and get seatbelts (violations) and those type of things. Seatbelts is one of the primary things that officers are looking for, but it tends to turn into a lot of OWI type of situations. So we’re hoping with the added enforcement, people know that the officers are out there and we’re putting extra manpower out there. So hopefully it plants a seed that you just get a taxi, or just make arrangements to get home.”

In addition to the traditional “party holidays” like St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, and New Year’s Eve, the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau organizes sTEP waves during each of the major travel holidays during the year, including Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The current sTEP wave will run from Thursday through Sunday. To hear more from Leonard, listen to today’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program on air and at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.