Special traffic effort set up on Highway 61

While the weather is relatively cool today, drivers in eastern Iowa might feel the heat. State, county and local law officers are out in force along Highway 61 in a special traffic enforcement effort called “Heat Day.” Davenport police captain David Struckman says they’ll be working along the route the entire day.He says the goal of the operation is to reduce the likelihood of an accident which causes injury and death. Struckman says just having a lot of patrol cars out on road can make people pay better attention to their driving. He says it’s a dual purpose, high visibility and high enforcement. Struckman says officers will write tickets for a variety of violations.He says they start with speed and seatbelt violations and it leads to other violations for things like driving without a license and driving without insurance. Struckman can’t say how many people might end up with a ticket by the time the day is done. He says he won’t guess at the number of tickets they’ll write because the success of the operation will be based on figures that come out later showing how accidents were reduced along the roadway. The highway runs from Burlington in the south all the way to the northern boarder of Iowa. Struckman says they’ll see drivers from Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois on the roadway along with Iowans.