(The Associated Press circulated the following article on June 2.)
BATON ROUGE, La. — A day after the 13th vehicle-train fatality this year in Louisiana, a state House of Representatives committee passed a bill to toughen penalties for motorists who violate traffic rules at train crossings.
Sixteen people have been killed by trains this year in Louisiana, including 13 in vehicles. Among those are an Arkansas woman, her 6-month-old daughter and a Texas man who died as a result of an accident March 4 in Oil City. The three nonvehicular fatalities involved a pedestrian at a crossing, someone who had been fishing on a train trestle and a man who had been lying by the tracks with his head against the rail.
House Bill 285 would increase the maximum fine for a first-offense violation of traffic rules at railway crossings, now $175, to $250.
The author, Rep. Don Cravins Jr., D-Opelousas, told House Transportation Committee members Wednesday that most of the accidents between trains and motorists are the fault of absent-minded drivers who might be more alert if they know penalties are getting tougher. “We’ve just got some motorists who just are not paying attention.”
The committee passed the measure without a vote Wednesday, sending it to the House of Representatives.
Tuesday, 60-year-old Donald Cooley of Merryville died when he pulled his log truck into the path of a Union Pacific single-engine train in Oberlin, police said. The state transportation department has a list of 50 crossings statewide that are considered too dangerous to remain open. But the local governments that control the crossings often are reluctant to shut them because residents consider them convenient.
A proposal by Sen. Art Lentini, R-Kenner, would revoke state transportation funding from towns, parishes and other local governments that refuse to close such crossings.
Senate Bill 353 is awaiting action on the Senate floor.