As the Iowa State Patrol works to keep traffic fatalities below 300 this year, the agency has noticed some fluctuations in traffic patterns lately that could help or hurt their cause.

Patrol District #4 Public Information Officer Shelby McCreedy says before COVID-19 became a widespread concern, vehicle-related deaths were already lower than compared to this time last year, and with a 50 percent drop in vehicles on the road they’ve continued to see a decrease in crashes and resulting deaths. McCreedy also mentions that surrounding states that have a shelter-in-place or similar order have seen an increase in crash fatalities, while Iowa has been the exception.

McCreedy is wary that Iowa’s record could change as they’ve seen over a 40 percent increase in speed citations over the past week, “So when you see the increase in speed what we’re trying to do now is stop what the next phase is and that’s the increase in serious injury and fatal accidents. So with the decrease in traffic we saw the decrease in fatalities but now that speeds are going up we’re trying to prevent what the next level of problems are going to be and that is an increase in fatal accidents but we’re doing good for right now.”

McCreedy says the main contributing factor in the state of Iowa for serious injuries and fatal accidents is excessive speed. Iowa has so far had 60 fatalities this year, while 336 were recorded total in 2019.