Iowa's Repeat Intoxicated Driver Program

Despite significant reductions in alcohol-related fatalities and injuries during the past decade, impaired driving remains a significant factor in traffic-related deaths and injuries in Iowa. Alcohol-related fatalities totaled 118 in the year 2001 (a five percent increase from 2000). Alcohol is a contributing factor in nine percent of all injury crashes, sixteen percent of all crashes resulting in a serious injury, and twenty-eight percent of crashes resulting in a fatality. The main strategies and activities performed as part of the Repeat Intoxicated Driver project are to conduct statewide enforcement at high-risk times and locations, dedicate Iowa State Patrol Officers to alcohol enforcement, provide inspections of point of alcohol sales to teens and youth, and provide education on the dangers of impaired driving to schools.

The main objectives of the Repeat Intoxicated Driver project are to decrease the incidence of individuals operating while intoxicated (OWI).

As a result of the Repeat Intoxicated Driver program were the Iowa State Patrol dedicated 38 troopers to full-time enforcement of Iowa’s OWI law and a total of 4,684 alcohol contacts were made. In addition, 8,300 speeding contacts and 2,400 occupant protection violations occurred. Over 1,000 retail education contacts were made, in which minors attempted to purchase alcohol 226 times.Safety education officers from the Iowa State Patrol conducted 364 hours of educational presentations at high schools, reaching 19,212 students. Alcohol-related traffic deaths dropped 20 percent during the first six months of 2002, a sixty-year low for traffic fatalities. The total number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities at the end of the year was 416.