The primary mission of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol is to ensure safe and efficient transportation on the streets and highways, reduce crime, protect against terrorism, enforce motor vehicle laws, and respond to natural and man-made disasters.

[5] North Carolina, like many Southern states, was distrusted by the federal government from starting a "state police" agency, due to concerns that the department would be used for political motives to intimidate blacks from voting in the late 1920s, at a time when lynchings and Ku Klux Klan activities were on the rise following the end of World War I.

The vast majority of the 100 NC Sheriffs also did not want to lose political power to a state police agency.

The original members of the Highway Patrol were the command staff and they were sent to the Pennsylvania State Police Academy for training.

Changes in the regulations by the general assembly were made in response to political appointees being named as commander.

Traffic control was of such concern that in 1929 the General Assembly passed an act authorizing the establishment of a State Highway Patrol.

Their mission was to study law, first aid, light adjustments, vehicle operation, and related subjects for use in North Carolina's first Patrol School.

The new patrolmen and command staff made a cross-state introductory riding tour on July 1, 1929 to show off the new agency's personnel to the state.

Without vehicular radios, patrolmen were issued 2 rolls of dimes each week so they could phone in for calls on a regular basis.

If they physically arrested a violator, the patrolmen would hide their motorcycle in brush and drive an offender to the local jail in his own vehicle.

All patrolmen were assigned individual vehicles in 1937, and over the passing decades, numerous executive, legislative, and administrative changes have occurred since the Patrol's creation.

Examples included an expanded air wing after World War II, implementation of two-way radios, use of helicopters, abolition of fixed-wing aircraft, use of breath testing devices, K-9 dog units, body armor, pursuit vehicles such as Mustangs and Camaros, speed measurement instruments such as the "whammy" in the 1950s, later RADAR, VASCAR and LIDAR and more recently computerized dispatch through in-vehicle terminals.

As of 2008, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol had an authorized strength of over 1,800 sworn law enforcement officers.