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The Utah Highway Patrol will be showing some tough love this Thanksgiving weekend, adding patrols and officers to target people who are not wearing seat belts, are speeding, or driving distracted or impaired.

"We aren't doing it for extra revenue. We're doing it to try to keep people alive," Utah Highway Patrol Superintendent Daniel Fuhr said Tuesday. "We've had a terrible year for highway fatalities. We want to get the message out: Wear your seat belt. Don't speed. Put down the cellphone. And don't drink and drive."

Utah has suffered 249 deaths on its roads so far this year. With a month still left in 2015, it is close to the 256 fatalities that occurred during all of 2014 — when deaths were up significantly from recent years.

Thanksgiving week is the busiest travel time of the year, and can be one of the deadliest, so the Highway Patrol will add an extra 260 officer shifts between Wednesday and Sunday, about 50 a day, Fuhr said, to show extra visibility to keep people safe on busy roads.

Some will be special "Click it or Ticket" patrols looking especially for people who are not wearing seat belts. A new law allows police to pull over and ticket people specifically for that violation. Previously, they had to stop drivers for other violations before they could cite not wearing a seat belt as a secondary offense.

Besides using the "stick" of threatening tickets, the Highway Patrol is encouraging a "carrot" approach by asking families to urge loved ones to buckle up.

The UHP held an event Tuesday featuring the family of Marcos and Mandee Cossa. She saved her husband's life by prodding him to buckle up.

"I was always taught to wear my seat belt growing up. I met Marcos at Dixie College. He is from Mozambique, and he was never taught to wear seat belts," Mandee said.

"It wasn't comfortable," Marcos said. "I wanted to relax and see the scenery. You just felt restricted with the seat belt."

That included when he picked her up for dates. But she refused to allow the car to move unless he buckled up. "I always had to remind him every single time. I had to be pretty stern with him because he just wouldn't do it on his own."

Over time, he developed a habit that saved his life in January 2000. Marcos was riding with a friend from St. George to Southern Utah University. Their pickup truck hit black ice, and it flipped end over end several times.

"His bag that he had at his feet with all his books was ejected several hundred feet down the road," Mandee said, adding that's what would have happened to her husband had he not been buckled in.

"I would have died," Marcos said. Instead, he escaped with only scratches and a broken finger.

"Now I am the one who makes sure everyone wears their seat belt," he said.

Mandee added, "He would not be alive today. It would have changed our lives dramatically." For example, all three of their children have been born since then: Isabel, 13; Zaquel, 8; and Briel, 7.

"Encourage your family to wear their seat belts because you love them," Mandee said, with tears in her eyes. "If the holidays are coming, you do not want to sit at an empty table. You want to be surrounded by your loved ones."

Fuhr said that with wintry weather expected on Wednesday and Thursday, extra caution is needed.

"With snow, don't just drive the speed limit — drive way under it," he said.

Add to poor driving conditions all the extra traffic expected on highways, Fuhr said, and there is no place for drinking and driving and driving distracted "such as talking on a cell phone, or trying to do your makeup." He said his officers will be on the lookout and will issue tickets.