Message Monday - Jingle belts, jingle belts, buckle all the way

December 9, 2019

Does it surprise you that about 35 percent of the people killed on Iowa highways so far this year weren’t wearing seat belts?  That’s 78 people (as of Dec. 4) who won’t be opening gifts or eating Christmas dinner with family and friends this year. All because they neglected to make that simple click.

Obviously, some crashes are so horrific that not even a seat belt is going to save a life, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says seat belts dramatically reduce the risk of death and serious injury. Among drivers and front-seat passengers, seat belts reduce the risk of death by 45 percent and cut the risk of serious injury by 50 percent. People not wearing a seat belt are 30 times more likely to be ejected from a vehicle during a crash and 75 percent of people who are ejected in a crash don’t survive.

Message Monday - Drunk driving - hate, hate, hate. Loathe entirely

December 2, 2019

Was there a drink or two served at your family gathering or “friendsgiving” last week? Did you question any of the guests about how safe they felt driving home, only to hear, “I’m fine. I’ve just had a few.”

It’s time we all come to the conclusion that there is no “safe” level of drugs or alcohol in your system if you’re behind the wheel of a speeding 2-ton chunk of metal. If you feel different, you drive different. Whether that’s after two beers or two dozen.

Message Monday: Stop distracted driving cold turkey

November 25, 2019

Do you have a cell phone addiction you need to overcome?

According to Helpguide.org, “While you can experience impulse-control problems with a laptop or desktop computer, the size, and convenience of smartphones and tablets means that we can take them just about anywhere and gratify our compulsions at any time. In fact, most of us are rarely ever more than five feet from our smartphones. Like the use of drugs and alcohol, they can trigger the release of the brain chemical dopamine and alter your mood. You can also rapidly build up a tolerance so that it takes more and more time in front of these screens to derive the same pleasurable reward.”

Message Monday -Save someone you love. Driver sober

November 18, 2019

Every day, about 30 people in the United States die in drunk-driving crashes according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  That's one person every 48 minutes.

Slowly changing attitudes related to drunk driving have helped reduce these preventable deaths over the last few decades, but drivers who are drunk or high still cause more than 30 percent of the fatalities on both Iowa and our nation’s roadways.

Online insurance clearinghouse The Zebra conducted a small survey that begins to paint a picture of U.S. drivers' thoughts on drinking and driving.

Message Monday- All hands on deck, muster for safety

November 11, 2019

We’re all in this together. Everyone who is on the road, whether you’re in a passenger car, driving a big rig, or riding a bicycle, we all have to watch out for each other.

With Veterans Day, we honor our military heroes who understand the importance of banding together to go to battle. To muster simply means to gather forces together to fight a common enemy. For Zero Fatalities, that common enemy is traffic deaths.

So what can you do? The answer is simple. If every driver would simply follow five basic safety rules, we could vastly decrease the number of deaths on Iowa highways.

Message Monday - Doe-see-doe: Dancing with deer is dangerous

November 4, 2019

If you look at crash statistics in Iowa, the most active two weeks for vehicle/animal crashes began Nov. 2. Most of those animals are deer.

So far in 2019 in Iowa, there have been 4559 crashes with 23 serious injuries, 93 minor injuries and $19,663,506 in reported damage related to vehicle/animal collisions – and we’re just getting into peak season.