The idea of more state troopers on the road might not inspire delight in drivers who tend to speed, but Deputy Director Col. Russell Roark said it will increase the safety of area roads.

In August, the Highway Patrol graduated its first class of troopers since June 2003. Recruit classes were put on hold in 2003 because of a lack of funding, Roark said.

There were 28 troopers in the August class, and Beaufort and Jasper counties received two of them. Thirty more recruits are expected to graduate Nov. 10, and the two counties are slotted to receive three more.

The two new troopers started Sept. 15 and will be in training for the next month, Field Operator Lt. Tommy Collins said. Once their training is complete, he said there will be two more people to put in known accident areas.

"We'll hit some areas people haven't seen us in in a long time," Collins said.

These additional troopers are possible because the General Assembly allocated the Department of Public Safety more than $7 million to hire an additional 100 troopers this fiscal year.

"They're giving us the 100 in order to bring our troop strength up," Roark said.

Even with weaker troop strength for the past two years, Roark said the patrol was able to answer calls and maintain a basic service level.

As the trooper hiring remained stagnant, highway fatalities have gone up, with 58 more fatalities statewide in 2005 than at this time in 2004, Roark said.

There were 13 fatalities in Beaufort County as of Sept. 26, compared with 23 by this time last year, according to Roark.

Along with funding for new troopers, the department received $2.4 million to start a program that would assign 24 troopers statewide to focus only on work zones and areas where a high amount of accidents occur.

It would be similar to what the patrol did this summer when enforcement was focused on the deadly stretch of U.S. 17 in Beaufort and Colleton counties, Roark said.

"It drove the fatalities almost down to nothing," he said.

The new program will start up no earlier than March 2006, when another recruit class graduates, creating enough troopers to devote to it, Roark said.

The program will work because it gives higher visibility to the troopers and greater opportunity to catch dangerous drivers before something deadly happens, he said.

"At the end of the day, I'm confident it'll save lives," Roark said.