Iowa DOT to Install Rumble Strips on All New Roads

The number of traffic fatalities in Iowa has dropped sharply this year and could reach a 100-year low.

Some law enforcement officials credit Iowa’s new law banning the handling of a smart phone while driving. Larry Grant, the state safety planner for the Iowa Department of Transportation, says officers have spent the past six months educating drivers and issuing warnings, with full enforcement beginning January 1.

“The public, they work around those laws a lot of times, so we’re hoping that once that’s enforceable that’s going to drive down crashes as a whole,” Grant told Radio Iowa. “That plays into, then, fatalities and serious injury crashes.”

Grant says a high percentage of traffic deaths involve a single vehicle running off the road.

“It tends to be a single occupant, sometimes impairment and then they aren’t wearing their seatbelt, which is very surprising,” Grant says. “That vehicle rolls and that person is either seriously injured or killed.”

Because of that trend, Grant says the Iowa DOT has adopted a new policy requiring rumble strips on every road the agency builds in the future. Edge line rumble strips will be added to all new roads, with center line rumble strips on two-lane highways.

“Those marks on the road that are ground in, that when you drive over it makes that noise that alerts the driver they’re either crossing the center line or going off the edge of the road,” Grant says.

The DOT is also increasing the width of painted lane markings from four inches to six inches. Grant says the change will help both drivers and newer vehicle safety systems.

“The newer vehicles, they’re looking for those edge line and center line markings,” Grant says. “And so with us increasing the size of those markings, it enhances the ability of that vehicle to actually see where the road is and keep that vehicle within the lanes of travel.”

Grant says major advances in vehicle technology are also helping reduce crashes and fatalities.

“Vehicles are really made to absorb those crashes so they have crush zones. They have air bags, and then they have anti-lock brakes and then traction control,” Grant says. “Then we really advanced it when it started doing lane assist or adaptive cruise control, so all those things that vehicle is doing for the driver without the driver even, honestly, knowing that.”

Additional roadway improvements are also improving safety, including high-intensity reflective signs, especially on curves.

“It makes that driver kind of look up a little bit and a lot of times when people are driving, they’re not focused on the roads, they’re looking down,” Grant says. “We want to draw their attention to those safety signs that are out there, whether it’s stop signs or yield signs or those chevrons around a curve. Whether it’s in the daylight or at night when those headlights hit, it draws attention to those signs.”

Grant served nearly 30 years as a state trooper and has been Iowa DOT’s state safety planner for the past three-and-a-half years.