As we near the end of the month, there’s a traffic safety initiative that residents of the Raccoon Valley Radio listening area should keep in mind.

Iowa State Patrol Trooper Shelby McCreedy says that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will be performing a speed safety initiative on July 26th on a large scale. She mentions that the NHTSA will be implementing this initiative in regions five and seven, which includes Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas. McCreedy tells Raccoon Valley Radio the biggest reason that this is happening.

“The purpose of this is to try and address excessive speeds, because that has become a major problem, not just in Iowa, but across the entire Midwest. So that is going to be the focus for those eleven states during July 26th.”

McCreedy explains that speed is the biggest factor in fatal crashes, and that since 2019 the number of tickets for speeds in the triple digits has been over 1,000 annually, jumping from 669 citations issued in 2019, to 1,497 in 2020. She adds that the Iowa State Patrol will also be including the Move Over Law in the initiative, mentioning that many people may not know that the law has changed in recent years from only including emergency vehicles with flashing red, blue or amber emergency lights, to any vehicle with flashing lights that is pulled over on the side of the road.

McCreedy says this means that if you see a vehicle with any lights flashing, you should either slow down to 20 miles per hour under the posted speed limit, or move into the other lane, but only if it is legal and safe to do so.