The Iowa State Patrol is partnering with the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau once again to make sure that Iowans stay safe over the upcoming holidays.

Iowa State Patrol Trooper Shelby McCreedy says that they are conducting the “Designate Before you Celebrate” initiative, and are focusing their increased efforts this time on impaired driving during the holiday season. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio more about the initiative.

“It’s a high visibility enforcement campaign that is promoted by the Iowa Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau, and what it essentially is, is both through an increased personnel on the roadways, through increased enforcement, as well as through information, some social media campaigns, essentially what the goal is to just educate the public about the dangers of impaired driving and try and reduce the number of impaired drivers that we have over the holidays on Iowa roadways.”

McCreedy mentions that there were eight deaths on Christmas Day last year, along with over 990 operating while intoxicated (OWI) arrests for the entire month of December of 2023. She adds that the goal for this year is to try and eliminate the number of deaths, along with bringing down the number of arrests made.