IOWA
Repeat Intoxicated Driver

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

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 as follows:

• Conduct statewide enforcement at high-risk times and locations, including late nights, weekends, and areas with high alcohol crash rates as identified by the Iowa State University Center for Transportation Research and Education.

• Dedicate 38 Iowa State Patrol Officers to alcohol enforcement.

• The Iowa Alcohol Beverage Control Division will provide inspections of point of alcohol sales to teens and youth.

• The Iowa State Patrol will provide education on the dangers of impaired driving to schools.

The results of the Repeat Intoxicated Driver program were:

• The Iowa State Patrol dedicated 38 troopers to full-time enforcement of Iowa’s OWI law.

• A total of 4,684 alcohol contacts were made (2,386 made by the State Patrol and 2,298 made by local law enforcement). A contact is a traffic stop in which the officer purposefully looks for signs of drinking or impairment, such as the odor of alcohol.

• The 2,386 contacts made by the State Patrol far exceeded the initial program objective of 924 contacts. Of these 2,386 contacts, 566 were OWI arrests, 109 were .02 blood alcohol content violations, 625 were open container citations, the remainder resulting in numerous other violations. In addition, 8,300 speeding contacts and 2,400 occupant protection violations occurred.

• Special agents made significant contributions in the areas of point-of-sale enforcement and education. Over 1,000 retail education contacts were made, in which minors attempted to purchase alcohol 226 times. In 135 of these purchase attempts, the minors were successful in purchasing alcohol.

• 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.