Vilsack: not many speeders on Interstates

Iowa’s governor says most drivers are not violating the new 70 mile per hour speed limit on most of Iowa’s miles of Interstate highway. Governor Tom Vilsack says Sunday night when he and his wife, Christie, returned to Des Moines from Mount Pleasant, Christie put the cruise control at 70 when they got on the Interstate. “What was interesting to us is that a lot of people weren’t going 70,” Vilsack says. The governor says this past July 4th weekend was one of the safest Independence Day holiday weekends in some time, and troopers tell him some drivers aren’t reaching 70, and most others were going just about 70. “People were not necessarily significantly increasing their speed,” Vilsack says. Seventy-miles an hour became the posted limit on most stretches of Interstate highway in Iowa on July 1st. “I was a bit surprised that the July 4th weekend was one of the safest and the fact that troopers were telling us anecdotally that people weren’t actually driving 70 miles an hour,” Vilsack says. The governor spends most of his time in the passenger seat as he’s escorted by state troopers. Vilsack says he does drive around Mt. Pleasant when he’s there, but that’s about the extent of his driving. A former Iowa governor was killed in a traffic accident decades ago, and the Iowa legislature enacted a law stipulating that Iowa’s governor, in most circumstances, should not drive himself but have a state trooper driver.