Authorities have a message for drivers using a well-traveled but dangerous road between Lawrence and Ottawa: Slow down, drive safely or face the consequences.

Starting Monday, Kansas Highway Patrol troopers and officers with the Franklin and Douglas County sheriff’s offices will begin a series of extra traffic patrols aimed at making the road safer, authorities announced Thursday.

In Douglas County, sheriff’s deputies will focus on the area south of Baldwin Junction to the county line, where officers say many drivers speed and pass illegally.

“I would anticipate it being an ongoing effort on our part as long as we have the manpower,” said Lt. Ken Massey, a sheriff’s spokesman. “We’re going to try to devote at least one person per shift to 59 Highway for traffic-enforcement purposes. I can’t guarantee it will happen every day, but we will try to get someone out there as much as we can.”

The department also will conduct “saturation patrols” Tuesday and Aug. 26 on the highway using a grant from the Kansas Department of Transportation to pay deputies for overtime work.

According to KDOT figures, the highway between Lawrence and Ottawa has an accident rate 25 percent higher than those on similar highways elsewhere in Kansas.

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Between 1995 to 1999, the stretch of road had 376 wrecks that left 193 people injured and 11 dead, according to KDOT figures. U.S. 59 carries about 10,000 vehicles a day.

Kay Hartzell, who lives about 300 feet from the highway in Baldwin and has seen many wrecks, welcomed the news.

“It’s obviously not a freeway, and it shouldn’t be treated like one, so if more police get out there patrolling it, I think that’s great,” she said.

Plans are in place to relocate the highway 300 feet east of the current road and upgrade it to a four-lane freeway by 2009. Construction on the approximately $214 million project is scheduled to begin in 2007.