AAA expects more than 72 million people on the road for the Fourth of July

(WHNT) — AAA said there will be a record-breaking number of travelers this Fourth of July holiday.

“We’re expecting 72.2 million people traveling a distance of 50 miles or more over this 4th of July holiday travel period,” AAA Spokesperson Clay Ingram said. “That’s a 2.4% increase over last year…. almost 2 million people more than we saw traveling for Fourth of July last year.”

Although more people mean more traffic.

“It’s going to be a lot of the go ten feet and stop type of traffic once you get within about an hour or so of the beach,” he said.

Ingram said the best thing you can do is avoid traveling in the afternoon. 

“If you can travel earlier in the mornings, early in the day, or maybe after 6 or 7:00 pm in the evening, then you’re going to see a little less traffic than you will during the afternoon,” he said.

Ingram said it’s important to remember that people from all over the country, not just people who live in Alabama, are driving through the state.

“We get traffic from about half of the United States coming through Alabama that are doing the same thing,” he said. “They’re heading to the Gulf Coast.

Robin Roberts and her family are heading from Lebanon, Tennessee, to Pensacola, Florida. 

She tells me they jumped-started their trip to avoid the busy roads.

“The closer you get to a holiday, the traffic is always going to be worse, so we took off earlier, so hopefully we can avoid that,” she said.

There are things you can do inside the car to make sure your trip goes to plan as well. 

“Have somebody else in the vehicle handle all the administrative duties, the map reading, the phone answering radio station, changing, handing out snacks, those kinds of things so that the driver can keep his or her focus on the road at all times,” Ingram said.