To help make this Thanksgiving a little safer, the Moose Jaw Police Service and police agencies across the nation will be dedicating a few more resources to keep the roads safe this long weekend.

Called "Operation Impact," the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is hoping agencies across Canada will participate in this public awareness campaign to promote safe driving.

Here in the Friendly City, members of the Combined Traffic Services Saskatchewan, which our department joined recently, will be coming into Moose Jaw to support our local officers.

"We're going to utilize some of those members, we're also bringing in additional officers and we are going to be working with other police agencies during the weekend to take that team approach, try to set up in some of the higher volume areas where we historically see more collisions and we see higher speeds," Sgt. Kevin Pilsworth with the MJPS explained.

The Moose Jaw Police Service will be focusing on what is called the "Big 4," Impaired Driving, Occupant Restraint Use, or seatbelt use, Aggressive Driving and Distracted Driving.

This is the third year in a row the police service is participating in the operation, which is an attempt to create a national approach and have a collaboration in terms of getting police officers out on one of the busiest times of the years to tackle some road safety issues.

For our officers, the goal isn't to give out as many tickets as they can but to just make drivers more aware and make the roads safer.

"There's no doubt in my mind that we only stop a small percentage of the drivers," Sgt. Pilsworth said. "The greater impact we have is just by being out there and being more visible and, you know what let's be honest, word gets around and we're not trying to make this a secret, we're trying to let the community know that we are going to be out there."

This operation is part of Canada's "Road Safety Strategy 2025 - Towards Zero," which aims to make Canada's roads the safest in the world.