(Undated)– The busy Thanksgiving Holiday travel time is upon us. Kevin Krull of the Iowa State Patrol tells us what to expect on two fronts…
“We’ve got a pretty good weather forecast and the forecast is for about 55 million, I think, travelers. Obviously they’re not all going to be coming through our area, but we will have a big travel holiday weekend coming up.”
Krull says the Thanksgiving holiday period last year was a deadly one on Iowa roads…
“Unfortunately last year we had seven traffic fatalities over that time period, the same time period last year, so we’re asking people just to kind of do what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to be stepping up our enforcement. We want people to step up their abilities to drive and side with us and do those things that we talk about so often, which is wear their seatbelt, avoid the impaired driving, put the distractions away, and keep it within the speed limit, and we’ll all get to our destination safely.”
Krull adds we need to be especially vigilant on this day before Thanksgiving…
“When I first took this job on I was in the same boat. I never considered it but I would tend to say that probably the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one of our bigger drinking holidays as far as people going out and I think it’s kind of everybody coming back home and nobody wants to make a mess so they go out and they meet their friends from way back when and they forget they need to have a sober ride home because they weren’t planning on having those drinks or letting them get that far ahead of them. So we just ask people to plan for that sober ride. Understand that they might partake in those beverages and we want them to make sure that they plan for that sober ride in advance because if you wait too long, you won’t have that ride. You need to make that phone call in advance so you’re the safest you can be.”
Krull says it’s as simple as if you drink, don’t drive. A special traffic enforcement campaign is underway on Iowa roads now through Monday, November 27th.
(Courtesy Community First Broadcasting station KIWA in Sheldon)
