Illinois State Police will be joined by 400 local departments for extra traffic patrols over the holiday weekend.

The cops will be looking for drunk and distracted drivers, speeders, and seat belt violators. The enforcement detail will run through midnight Monday.

Shannon Alderman, the alcohol program coordinator for IDOT, says this is not about ticket revenue. "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over is not about making arrests. We want motorists to drive smart to prevent those arrests from ever having to take place. Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over is about deterrence, it's about prevention, it's about saving lives," he said.

Alderman says these efforts are working, because fatalities caused by drunk drivers, especially at night, are declining in Illinois. There were 374 DUI deaths in Illinois in 2007. That number dropped to 233 in 2011. Between the hours of midnight and 3 a.m., DUI fatalities fell from 121 in 2007 to 71 in 2011. {IRN)

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