Last year 906 people died on Louisiana roadways, that’s almost a seven percent decrease from 2021 which had 972 fatalities. That’s according to the LSU Center for Analytics and Research and in Transportation Safety. Louisiana Highway Safety Commission spokesperson Greg Fischer said more people returned to work in 2022 which increased traffic…
“And when cars are moving more slowly there’s fewer fatal crashes, and I think the other main factor to this decrease is we had more DWI stops,” said Fischer.
In 2022 Fischer there was a bigger effort to stop drunk and impaired drivers and it paid off.
“What we found was that for every thousand hours of patrol, we had four fewer fatalities. And for every standard field sobriety test conducted we saw three fewer fatalities,” said Fischer.
DWI arrests in 2022 increased eight percent and there was an eight-percent decrease in drunk-driving fatalities.
Sadly, fatalities among pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists remained near or above 2021 levels. Fischer encourages pedestrians to walk against traffic so they can see oncoming vehicles and move out of harm’s way. And to also make yourself more visible…
“If you’re walking at night and you’re wearing dark clothing, and you’re on the side of the road, it can be very difficult for a driver to see you,” said Fischer.
Fischer said the majority of traffic fatalities are caused by four things, lack of seatbelt usage, aggressive, impaired, and distracted drivers.
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