Louisiana Pacing to Over 900 Traffic Fatalities in 2021

It has been a bad, bad year for Louisiana drivers.

I can't remember a year where we had this many traffic fatalities. As of this writing, our state has seen 821 fatalities stemming from accidents on Louisiana roadways. That is a monstrous number. That number was bolstered by an abnormally fatal Thanksgiving weekend. Over the weekend just several weeks ago, we saw 15 crashes and 26 fatalities.

Naturally, drivers should be extra aware over the next couple of weeks. It's the busy travel-time of the year as we roll into Christmas festivities and of course, New Years. My hope is that enough Louisiana readers see this and decide to not drink and drive as our year concludes. Not only that, but I hope that reading this eery news leads to our listeners and drivers deciding to buckle up the next time they are in their vehicle. Also, it would be nice if this alert led to our drivers not speeding on the roads during this heavily congested time.

The majority of Louisiana fatalities stemming from roadway accidents are directly correlated to one of the three issues mentioned above. Sure, accidents do happen, and at times they are completely unavoidable, but that doesn't mean we all shouldn't do our part to keep our Louisiana roads safe this holiday season.

DOTD spokesperson Rodney Mallett says, "Don’t drive intoxicated, obey the traffic laws, put your phone down and pay attention to the roadway and that will help us a lot. Call *LSP, that’s our partners over at State Police, they have come out and said if you witness aggressive or unsafe drivers call *LSP".