An employee for a DOTD contractor was killed Wednesday morning while working on the I-10 Atchafalaya Basin Bridge. The state transportation department says a vehicle collided with equipment that ultimately made impact with the worker. DOTD spokesperson Rodney Mallett says State Police is investigating, but they have this advice for motorists.
“Paying attention, being safe and slowing down. Those are the most important things you can do to ensure that this doesn’t happen.”
Mallett says they are not sure what led to today’s tragic incident, but distracted driving has been a big problem on this stretch of highway.
“It is just important I think to pay attention. You know we have discussed this before, 77 percent of the crashes between Lafayette, Baton Rouge and I-10 can be attributed to distracted driving.”
Mallett says in this particular work zone on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge contract workers are conducting joint repairs during non-peak driving hours.
“It was the end of the work-zone and they were about to pick up all of their equipment and move on for the peak hour of traffic and the crash occurred.”
