By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)
Iowa’s preliminary number shows the lowest number of traffic deaths since the state started keeping records 100 years ago.
DOT State Highway Safety Program Manager Larry Grant says a drop in motorcycle deaths is one of the factors. “Motorcycles were about half the fatalities than we normally have. And that kind of plays into what we were talking about, the number one crash, especially fatality, crash in the state of Iowa is a run off the road,” he says. Motorcycle deaths dropped from 64 to 38 in 2025.
Grant says running off the road has been a key factor in motorcycle deaths. “Motorcycles typically are the majority of them are going to be single vehicle. I know that’s a shock, but a lot of times people think it’s going to be multiple vehicles. It’s not, it’s a single vehicle run off the road,” he says.
Grant says driving while impaired by alcohol is another factor in motorcycle deaths, but he says age is a bigger concern. “The actual motorcycle deaths in Iowa are more in the older age group than the younger age group. The younger age group has more crashes, but the injuries and fatalities occurs mostly with the older,” he says.
Grant says the older age group is 54 to 65, and handling the speed of the motorcycle becomes an issue for them. “You know, they had it when they’re young and now they still have it. They get those big bikes and they just come in and speed is really, really high. The speed comes into those curves or and they just can’t slow down enough and they go off,” he says. “Now the younger drivers typically are riding the sport bikes and they’re typically wearing helmets more than your older drivers with I’m going to call them touring bikes, whether it’s a Harley-Davidson or whatever it might be.”
Grant says All Terrain Vehicles and Utility Terrain Vehicle crashes have led to more deaths as laws changed regarding their use. “Registrations for that through the DNR shows that went from 30,000 registered UTV’s to 70,000 last year. So that’s a huge increase on UTV’s, ATVs,” he says. UTV and ATV deaths dropped by half this year from 20 to 10.
Grant says one other statistic that stands out is the number of accidents where more than one person died. “Our our multiple fatality crashes were drastically down this year. We had about 12 of those crashes that resulted in 24 deaths, compared in the past we’ve had up to 88 deaths, with two years ago, 39 crashes, but 88 deaths,” he says.
Grant says the 2025 total now is 259, but they wait 30 days after the end of the year to make it a final count, to include someone who was injured in an accident and later died from those injuries.
