Additional details have been released with regard to a near head-on collision on Highway 71 Friday morning, just south of Galveston Road. The crash took place at around 10:37-a.m. Atlantic Police Lt. Paul Wood describes what happened.

The driver of the cargo van was identified as Michael Jones, from Nebraska. Both drivers were transported by private vehicle to Cass Health, to be checked for injuries.    Lt. Wood said they suffered minor bumps and bruises, a majority of which apparently came from the use of their seat belts. He said Guyer was cited for Passing in a No Passing Zone. Atlantic Fire and Rescue and Cass EMS responded to the scene.

(Radio Iowa) – Thousands are expected to hit the roadways to celebrate summer and our country’s independence this weekend. Iowa State Patrol spokesman, Sergeant Alex Dinkla, expects the predictions to be accurate. “The weather shows it’s not going to be too hot, not too cold. So I think we are going to have a lot of people who are traveling out to do recreational activities, as well as probably travel,” Dinkla says. Trooper Dinkla says one thing about the roadways hasn’t changed. “We continue here in Iowa to have a major problem with people speeding on our roadways. That’s something we’ve been pushing for months now — probably the last year and a half…we cant’ stress enough for people to slow down,” he says.

Iowa State Patrol spokesman, Sergeant Alex Dinkla

Dinkla says they don’t want to keep anyone from celebrating the holiday — but they do want to be sure you and everyone else is safe on the highway. “If you chose to go out and have some fun with some friends or some family this weekend — if you’ve had anything to drink…be responsible and find that designated driver. And just please don’t drive impaired. We want you to get home safe.” Dinkla says Troopers will be looking for signs of impaired driving. He says there have been five fatalities the last two years during the 4th, and four of them were alcohol-related.

Trooper Dinkla says wearing your seatbelt is important to keep you and your family safe if something were to happen on the roadways.

(Radio Iowa) – Some gas stations are having trouble getting their normal supply of fuel going into the holiday weekend. FUEL IOWA spokesman John Maynes says there is enough gas — it’s a matter of getting it delivered. “The issue isn’t the supply of gasoline or diesel fuel coming into the state of Iowa, it really is the issue of logistics and driver availability to shuttle the product to retail locations across the state,” Maynes says.

He says some outages happen as the demand picks up from holiday travel. He says it will be a temporary outage as distributors will be doing what the industry calls a “milk run” and dropping a partial load of gas at stations just to ensure they have some on hand.

He says those partial loads of gas can be enough in some cases and in others they aren’t. “You do run into situations — especially coming into a holiday weekend where demand is up — those smaller loads may not be sufficient until they can get a tanker back again,” according to Maynes.

Maynes says the gas shortage will most likely be the most visible during times of higher demand, but the actual shortage of truck drivers could be ongoing for some time as the industry looks to get younger workers learning the skill.