(Spirit Lake)– Travel officials are expecting a near record volume of traffic on the roads over the 4th of July holiday. Kevin Krull of the Iowa State Patrol says you’ll need to plan ahead for that and allow some extra time, especially if you’re traveling through the lakes corridor…
“And the holiday falls on a Friday so I would say you’re going to see traffic starting on Wednesday night all the way through Thursday coming into the Lakes Area and you’ll see troopers out there working side by side with local law enforcement making sure those folks are doing the right thing when they’re driving and enforcing the traffic laws as part of a high visibility project we’ll have going on.”
Krull says they’ll be focusing on seat belt usage and impaired or distracted driving, among other things…
“Last year on our holiday 4th of July weekend in the state of Iowa we lost nine lives, there were nine fatalities in Iowa over the Fourth of July weekend and that’s just way too many. We’re trying to get that fatality rate under 300. We’re on a good trend right now, we’re down six from last year and we’re down 16 from our five year average so we’re on a good trend and we want to keep that going, so we’re going to be out there enforcing those speed and seat belt and impaired driving which are the big ones for the Fourth of July.”
Krull adds you need to plan ahead if you are planning to celebrate with alcohol…
“Make sure we’re planning for that, how are we going to get home? How are we going to get to our safe destination, or maybe we’re staying here. That’s always a great option but we need to be making those plans on how we’re going to get home if we’re going to be using those substances that impair us.”
Krull says you can do that by having a designated driver or by utilizing a ride service.
