Iowa State Patrol has been seeing excessive speed as well as an increase in traffic fatalities this year.

District 4 Iowa State Patrol Resource Officer Shelby McCreedy tells Raccoon Valley Radio their goal every year is to have less than 300 traffic fatalities and so far there are over 200 fatalities this year, which is at least five traffic-related deaths ahead of this time last year. She adds, there were seven fatalities last weekend alone. She notes that during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, they were seeing 20-29 fewer deaths because people stayed home, due to the Governor’s public health emergency proclamation. But in just a few weeks, McCreedy says that trend quickly dissipated. She describes the reasons that led to the increased number of deaths on the road.

“These collisions are caused by someone’s choices. The majority of the time they are speed related. So the choice to exceed the speed limit at especially excessive amounts is one of the factors that leading to the increase in crashes, again choices such as driving distracted, driving impaired. People just need to get back to focusing on their driving. They need to drive safely and they need to drive legally and those are the things that help bring the numbers back into check.”

McCreedy points out a positive is that Iowa is currently 4.3-percent below the state’s five-year average death rate on roadways.