 With the holiday season officially arriving this week, many throughout our region will likely be preparing to make at least one trip away from home in order to visit with friends and family, especially after dealing with various lockdowns and restrictions over the past two years. To that end, we sat down with Pikeville City Police Captain Russell Blankenship on Tuesday afternoon to discuss what travelers should expect to encounter while out on the roads this Thanksgiving. This holiday season, travel is going to be very heavy. Just make sure you try to level it earlier to give yourself enough time to get to where you're going, try not to be in too big a rush. A lot of parties are going on this time of year, a lot of holiday parties. If you're going to be at the party and decide to dream, make sure you try to get you a designated driver and like I said, just make sure you give enough time to get there where you're going. And while most of us will likely be a little more cautious while out on the highway during the holidays, Captain Blankenship says that commercial traffic on the smaller roads surrounding our local shopping centers can be just as treacherous for motorists as the major roadways tend to be this time of year. Usually it's a lot of them are speed related or impatient where somebody's trying to get somewhere before a place closes. And just where traffic is so heavy and like down around the Cassie Boulevard area gets very congested. We have about the same amount of wrecks as we do in Thompson Road area in Cassie Boulevard as we do on 23. Sometimes there's a little more in the holiday season because of how congested it is around the Walmart and the commons area down that way. Captain Blankenship also wanted to remind viewers to take all of the necessary precautions when celebrating with friends and family in order to help ensure the safety of everyone who may also be out on the road this time of year. Just always try to plan ahead. Try to decide where you're going first and make sure you're getting yourself enough time. And like I said at the party, if you want to go drink and make sure you've planned ahead and got yourself a designated driver away home. Every holiday season around this time we'll always have a few more units out on patrol to help with traffic situations. There'll probably be some checkpoints here and there just to make sure everyone's safe on the roadway. For Mountain Top News, I'm Josh Shulislaw.