(Spirit Lake)– If you plan to celebrate over the holidays there are some very important things to consider. Among them, don’t drink and drive. Kevin Krull of the Iowa State Patrol tells KUOO news if alcohol is in your plans, you need to be making some arrangements ahead of time, including having an alternate form of transportation lined up…
“First and foremost we have family and friends, but there’s also the rides programs that out there, the different Ubers and Lyfts and different stuff like that. In fact, the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau has a coupon for that if somebody’s in the area where they want to utilize that there’s you can go on the website to download that and scan that. But we just want people to be aware that almost 30 percent of our fatalities are alcohol or impairment related throughout the year. We want to get that number down to zero obviously but we want to try and do our best.”
Krull adds the number of alcohol-related crashes that have resulted in fatalities is a wake-up call…
“Crashes-wise up in this area we’re at four crashes this year that are alcohol-related that have taken a life. So there’s been four people that have died in this northwest corner that were impairment-related, so we want to try to get that number down to zero again, but we need to get that number under control, so to speak. Every 39 minutes nationwide there’s a life that is taken because of an impaired driver. That’s a pretty staggering number.”
While no major winter storms are in the forecast through Christmas and the upcoming holiday weekend, fog has been causing issues. Krull says with the temperature near freezing, there are factors other than limited visibility you need to keep in mind…
“Beware of the frosty road conditions with these foggy mornings. Make sure people are turning their headlights on. Don’t rely on just the daytime running lights or the automatic headlights. I know in that snow squall that we had the other day there were still a lot of people driving around on the roadways that didn’t have their lights on and that makes it difficult for you to be seen. So we ask people to turn their lights on, watch for those slick road conditions. We’ve got great weather predicted but with that the fog still brings icy road conditions, so be paying attention for that.”
Krull notes the Iowa State Patrol has additional troopers on the road now through New Year’s Day with a special emphasis on impaired driving and seat belt violations.
