Motorists in Iowa are reminded to buckle-up, slow down and make sure they obey all traffic laws during the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend. Officials with the Iowa Governor’s Traffic Bureau say a Special Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP) will be in effect, with law enforcement officers from various agencies on the lookout for motorists who are not wearing their seat belts, speeders, erratic drivers, and persons with defective vehicle equipment (Such as tail lights out, expired license plates, etc.).

Authorities say the holiday period (6-p.m. Wednesday, November 25th – to 6-a.m. Monday, November 30th) is the busiest travel time of the year for American motorists. Unfortunately, more motorists on the roads increase the likelihood of traffic crashes. Wearing a seat belt is the single most effective way to prevent injury or death in a crash. The risk of a fatal injury goes down by 45% when seat-belted in a passenger car and 60% when in a light truck.

During the 2013 Thanksgiving weekend (the last year in which information is available), there were 301 people, nationwide, lost their lives on roadways (two in Iowa), in which a staggering 58%were not wearing seat belts. Preliminary numbers indicate that there were three fatalities in Iowa during the same period in 2014. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), approximately 12,584 lives were saved by seat belts in 2013 and an additional 2,800 more could have been saved if everyone had worn seat belts.

Iowa has one of the highest seat belt compliance rates in the nation at 92.96 percent but the unbuckled 7.04 percent represent 46 percent of the fatalities. The Iowa Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) Iowa Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau (GTSB) Chief Patrick Hoye stated, “This is really troubling, almost half of the passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes were not wearing their seat belts; we see way too many preventable fatalities in crashes.”

The Iowa DPS and the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau reminds you that whether you are traveling near or far take a moment to simply buckle your seat belt.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Gov. Terry Branstad has issued a disaster proclamation for Sioux County following recent severe weather. Branstad said in a news release Monday the proclamation will allow state officials to better assist the northwest Iowa county, which was affected by a winter storm that began Saturday.

Issues in the area included the explosion of an electrical distribution transformer box, a water main break and other electrical failures. It resulted in damage to public property and power outages throughout the city of Sioux Center.

The number of students taking courses at Iowa’s community colleges this fall is down. The Department of Education’s Community College administrator, Jeremy Varner, says this report gives a quick look at what’s happening at the school’s. “This is really just a slice of those credit students who are enrolled in fall. And essentially what we’re seeing, is that at Iowa’s 15 community colleges, enrollment this fall has slipped about point-six percent, to just over 93-thousand students statewide,” Varner says.

He says the report that they’ll put out in January will look at the entire school year enrollment, but this gives an early look of what is happening. “Iowa’s community college enrollment throughout its history is generally a history of growth. There aren’t too many years where we’ve seen declines,” Varner explains. “We had such tremendous growth during the recession we’re seeing that correction — and now it appears to be sort of leveling off.”

Varner says the overall drop in the fall came as there has been an increase in high school students taking community college courses. “That was up over five percent. Over the past several years we continue to see year-over-year growth in that area. Students graduating from high school today have many more opportunities to pursue college credit course work than students did ten years ago,” Varner says.
Varner says you need to look at the individual community colleges to get a clearer picture of the enrollment.

“We had about six see enrollment gains, while eight saw declines this past year. And there is a variety of different factors and you have to kind of look at the trend lines to really see what is going on there,” according to Varner. “You know there is a lot of different reasons for that variability, but some saw declines as much as eight percent this fall, and some saw growth as much as eight percent.”

He says keeping enrollment steady is important to these schools. “Community colleges are more tuition dependent than they were 15 years ago. So, when institutions see declines in enrollment, they really feel it,” Varner says.  Iowa Valley saw the largest drop in fall enrollment at seven-point-six percent, Des Moines Area Community College dropped five-point-two percent, Western Iowa Tech last three-point-eight percent, Northeast Iowa one-point-four percent, Iowa Lakes lost one percent of its enrollment, while Iowa Central and Iowa Western lost nine-tenths of a percent. North Iowa Area lost one-tenth of one percent. Indian Hills saw the biggest gain of eight-point-two percent, followed by Kirkwood at three-point-eight percent, Southwestern at three-point-five, Northwest was up three-point-one, Eastern Iowa had a three percent increase and Hawkeye Community College saw a one-point-five percent increase.

Varner says each school has some key things that impact their enrollment. “Each institution has its own context, it has its own labor market conditions, they have their own recruitment efforts, they have their own competitors, all these things sort of bleed over each other.”  The community college enrollment is made up of 90 percent Iowans, and around 40 percent are full time students.

(Radio Iowa)

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Gov. Terry Branstad has pardoned two turkeys as part of an annual Thanksgiving tradition in Iowa. Branstad issued the special proclamation Monday outside Terrace Hill in Des Moines for two turkeys named Zoey and Spike. Branstad noted during brief remarks that the birds had survived bird flu this year. The disease killed more than 1.1 million turkeys in the state.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a woman has been killed in a single-vehicle crash in Des Moines that also injured a man. Des Moines police say 22-year-old Scalicity Boyd was a passenger in a vehicle that struck a utility pole Monday morning. The driver, 24-year-old Troy Lee Mure Jr., was injured and transported to a local hospital.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Iowa regulators are transferring money that they had withheld for months from university research centers that study alternative energy and global warming. Yesterday’s reversal by the Iowa Utilities Board comes after critics said the board was violating the law by hanging on to $5.1 million that it collected from utilities.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa egg farms are gradually recovering from the bird flu that destroyed 25 million of the state’s egg-laying hens this spring. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says in a report Monday that Iowa egg production during October was 753 million eggs. That’s up 2 percent from September but down 47 percent from a year ago. Iowa, typically by far the nation’s leading egg producer, fell behind Ohio.