Tomorrow will be a statewide effort by law enforcement to reduce the number of traffic fatalities by focusing on the most important factor, speed.

Iowa State Patrol District 4 Resource Officer Shelby McCreedy tells Raccoon Valley Radio local, county and state law enforcement will be working together tomorrow, in conjunction with the Traffic Fatality Reduction Task Force by looking for speeding vehicles. McCreedy says speed is the one number contributing factor to traffic fatalities. She points out last year when there wasn’t as much traffic because of COVID-19, more people were actually speeding, which she adds has carried over into this year.

“It used to be where if you got a triple-digit speed that was kind of an anomaly, that is no longer the case. It is a regular daily occurrence and that’s very problematic, and it’s also a very big contributing factor to why we’re sitting currently 11 fatalities ahead of where we were last year.” 

McCreedy notes that last year, there was a 74-percent increase in drivers speeding 25 miles per hour or more and those going 100 mph and more increased over 108-percent, compared to the four-year average. McCreedy adds the data from the task force identified September as the month with higher fatality crashes because of excessive speed.