Iowa DOT explores safer, quicker responses to traffic crashes

William Petroski | The Des Moines Register

Show Caption Hide Caption Crashes caught on camera along Highway 330 Crashes since 2012: Here are videos of the only crashes caught on a DOT camera at the two once-dangerous Jasper County intersections along Iowa Highway 330.

Better training of first responders will provide quicker, safer and more efficient handling of vehicle crashes and will reduce traffic delays for other motorists, according to the state's top transportation official.

Iowa Department of Transportation Director Mark Lowe said his agency is exploring the idea of establishing a traffic incident management training center at Newton.

It would help educate law enforcement officers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, tow truck operators, highway crews, communications workers and others.

The center would provide realistic training scenarios on a specially built set of roads that would include sections of interstate highway, rural two-lane highways with and without gravel shoulders, a residential street with sidewalks, intersections and other options.

Traffic incident training is now offered in classroom presentations around the state, but there is not a center exclusively dedicated to such programs that offer field exercises.

Hands-on experience is critical, and the side of a busy Iowa interstate is not the best place to learn about traffic incident management, Lowe said.

"Whenever we have an incident on our system, the people who arrive have to deal with it in the safest, most effective and fast way," Lowe said. "It takes a mindset of understanding what effective traffic management incident management looks like and how to train with a broad spectrum of professional resources."

In 2015, Iowa had 54,589 traffic crashes, including 15,283 injury crashes and 320 traffic deaths, DOT records show. There were 405 people killed on the state's roads in 2016.

One of the goals of the training center would be to reduce secondary crashes and injuries that occur when traffic comes to a halt behind a vehicle crash scene.

But roadway incidents can also occur simply when traffic is slowed by a stalled vehicle, debris on the roadway and by a host of other factors. The longer that responders remain on the scene, the greater the risk of additional accidents, according to transportation officials.

Patrick Hoye, chief of the Iowa Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau, said the DOT's proposal to establish the training center is consistent with professional traffic standards being encouraged nationally.

"Almost every state is having some version of this type of training," Hoye said. "The quicker that you can remove the crash and open the highway up the better."

DOT Director Lowe estimates thousands of personnel from throughout the Midwest could participate in training annually at the Newton center, which would be on a 36-acre site off Interstate Highway 80 near exit 168.

The DOT has not made a commitment to build the training center in Newton, but the concept could be implemented in cooperation with a proposal being studied to relocate the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy from Johnston to Newton, Lowe said.

State Sen. Chaz Allen, D-Newton, who is also executive director of the Jasper County Economic Development Corp., said he's encouraged about the economic opportunities the DOT training center could provide to local motels, caterers and other businesses. But he said funding would need to be approved and further studies would be required.

Lowe estimates the training center would cost about $2 million. Both state and federal funding alternatives are being explored, he added.