(Area) The Special Traffic Enforcement Program is in its final day today.
Iowa State Patrol Trooper and Public Information Officer Shelby McCreedy says the program began on August 21 with the goal of keeping impaired drivers off the roadways. “So as with every holiday project, there will be additional personnel on the roadways to take impaired drivers off the roadways, as well as enforce speed limits and seat belts. So slow down, wear your seat belt, put the phone down, and make sure you don’t drive impaired over the Labor Day holiday weekend.”
Labor Day weekend is one of the deadliest times of the year in terms of drunk-driving fatalities. During the 2018 Labor Day holiday period, there were 439 traffic fatalities nationwide. Forty-percent of those fatalities involved drivers who had been drinking and more than one-third of the fatalities involved drivers who were over the legal limit.
In 2019, there were six fatalities on Iowa’s roadways over the Labor Day Holiday. Three of those deaths involved drunk drivers.
