BEWARE: Louisiana Road Debris Can Kill You
If you've driven on any number of Louisiana roadways, especially in Shreveport-Bossier, you've probably seen tons of junk in the shoulder or in the travel lane. I know personally that I drive every day on I-220 between the radio station and Bossier City. And just over the past week or so, I've had to avoid a haybale, a door, a drive shaft, a chair, a mattress and a freezer door.
And these weren't on the shoulder, they were in a lane! Oh yeah, that's on top of the plentiful potholes and other road hazards drivers need to deal with on a daily basis. Luckily for me, traffic was light enough to where I could avoid them without much incident. But, with that said, I got lucky. Another time of day or a vehicle in the lane next to me and I could be telling a much different story.
Any of those items can do major damage to your vehicle, but when you're behind an 18 wheeler and you don't see those things until the last moment, any evasive move at 70+ mph can be potentially deadly.
First off, people need to do a better job securing items before getting on the road. Secondly, someone needs to get off their butts and clean this stuff up in a timely fashion because this is super dangerous. I don't know who's responsibility it is: DOTD, the City, the State...but someone needs to do something because this is RIDICULOUS!
Now, if you're thinking to yourself, "yeah, it's ugly but it's not as bad as you're making it sound". Think again. Here's a little video I just saw on YouTube. I don't know what interstate this is on, but it perfectly illustrates what can go wrong when you hit a road hazard with any kind of speed.
That literally looks like a movie car crash! But this isn't a movie crash, this is something that presumably happened in real life on an interstate somewhere in America. Yes, this may be an extreme example of what can happen...but you hit any kind of object at speed and bad things are going to happen.
Louisiana needs to do better. The people of Shreveport-Bossier needs to do better. I've been in several potentially dangerous situations over the past couple of weeks and it's getting old.