(The following story by Alain de la Villesbret appeared on the Daily World website on July 21.)
OPELOUSAS, La. — The St. Landry Parish Council will help Operation Lifesaver plan a series of public education meetings geared toward lowering the parish’s number of train-vehicle collisions.
Operation Lifesaver executive director Betsy W. Tramonte attended the council’s regular meeting Tuesday at the parish courthouse with Union Pacific Railroad executives Paul D. Rathgeber and Sam Stephenson.
“We have a significant problem in this parish and I am begging the parish council for cooperation,” Tramonte said. She said Union Pacific statistics on the Kinder to Krotz Springs line show the line is the highest incident corridor in the state.
There have been 40 train-vehicle collisions between Kinder and Krotz Springs from Jan. 1, 2000 through May 28, 2004, Tramonte said. That is 20 percent of the total for the state. Of these accidents, 16 have ended in fatalities, which is 67 percent of the state’s total fatalities in that period, Tramonte said.
Louisiana’s total in the time frame has been 202 incidents with 65 injuries and 24 fatalities. St. Landry Parish has had 24 incidents with 10 injuries and seven deaths, placing it first in the state. Calcasieu Parish has had 22 accidents in the same period, but with only one death. Jefferson Davis Parish has had the highest number of deaths, nine but with only eight accidents.
Tramonte said the state has 5,000 private crossings and 5,000 public crossings, which ranks it 15th in the nation in number of crossings. However, the state is ranked in the top five states for number of collisions resulting in injury or fatality.
“We need to find a way to lower those numbers, and we believe that driver education will help. We can not do that without the support of the community, and for that we need the support of the community leaders,” Tramonte said.
Parish president Don Menard said he fully supports and educational program and requested the council also support it. Council chairman William “Billy” Gil suggested the council present the education program to all parish drivers,.District 9 Councilman Wayne Ardoin suggested the school board get on board. And District 3 Councilman Pat Miller suggested the same for all of the parish’s municipalities.
The council voted to cooperate in whatever manner possible and to send letters of their intent to the school board, the municipalities and all parish entities.