The Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau has launched an effort to reduce the number of fatal crashes on Iowa’s rural roadways. Randy Hunefeld (hun’-ee-feld), spokesman for the bureau, says those secondary roads account for 79-percent of the roads in Iowa.

The so-called “High Five Traffic Safety Project” will involve five counties: Allamakee, Fremont, Marion, Palo Alto and Webster. They were selected based on crash data and their relatively low seat belt compliance rates. Hunefeld believes the project will encourage more motorists to buckle up.

The High Five project was launched this week and will run through September 2015. There were 317 traffic-related fatalities in Iowa in 2013. That marked a record low for the state, but Hunefeld says 317 deaths is still too many.