This week, with 4th of July celebrations, the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau and Iowa law enforcement agencies are teaming up and reminding everyone to buckle up. They will be conducting “high visibility” enforcement and cracking down on traffic violators, especially those who are not buckled up.

As of June 12th of this year, according to the Iowa Department of Transportation, there have been 117 traffic fatalities this year – nearly 40-percent of those deaths involved individuals who were not using a seat belt.

During last year’s July law enforcement sTEP wave, nearly 16,000 total traffic violations were reported across the state by 1,444 enforcement officers, 1,200 were seat belt and 4,700 were speed violations.