Baton Rouge Transportation Hub

Baton Rouge: Louisiana’s Transportation & Accident Hub

We at Kleinpeter & Schwartzberg, LLC don’t subscribe to the notion of casual Louisiana bashing, as we all live here with our families, and have children to raise the best way we can. In order to fix a problem, you must have a clear factual understanding of what is at stake. The sad truth is that Louisiana highways are too often poorly designed and inadequately maintained. Because of our state’s rich endowment and harvest of natural resources in agricultural crops like sugar, seafood, and timber, as well as major reserves of natural gas, crude oil, and sulfur, we have an enormous bulk shipping and transportation network concentrated here in the Baton Rouge–New Orleans corridor. Contact us today to further discuss this and other issues with a lawyer at our firm.

Louisiana ’s Chemical Industrial Base

Our major industrial base includes perhaps the most concentrated chemical plant corridor in the entire US along the 90 miles from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. Because of the natural geography of the Mississippi River, east-west travel in the most populous parts of our state, both local and long-distance, must largely funnel through the travel choke points of the major Mississippi River bridge crossings at Baton Rouge. This natural fact of life increases the congestion, road and bridge wear and tear, and accident probabilities for everyone who travels on those roads.

The I-10 Interstate Corridor

The I-10 corridor is the major east west road transportation gateway for cars and trucks across the entire southern US, passing through 8 states and the heart of Louisiana. Baton Rouge is its Louisiana center. Our refineries and harbors, which make us both rail and barge and ocean going shipping centers for the US and rest of the World, require massive amounts of truck traffic to load and unload their cargoes. In Louisiana, and especially around Baton Rouge, a higher proportion than normal of those trucks handle large quantities of hazardous and dangerous chemicals, which pose additional risks to communities and cars when road accidents and spills occur.

The I-10 in Louisiana is one of the oldest parts of the US interstate system, and is showing its age. Much of the daily traffic using our Louisiana highways are trucks registered elsewhere passing through, and out of state drivers are not as familiar with our special driving conditions as they might be. Unfortunately, the physical and financial harms from road accidents mostly stay here.

Louisiana ’s Water Resources & Transportation

Louisiana is blessed in the abundance of water resources we have, but together with our generally low lying physical geography they pose some additional hazards to drivers and vehicles. Our main roads often travel across large swampy areas such as the Bonne Carrie Spillway and the Atchafalaya Basin, or for 26 miles across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. For miles of our interstate system, major high speed roadways are constrained to two lanes with very narrow shoulders, and virtually no median or escape room during an impending accident situation.

Further, because of our location and climate along with our water resources, our roadways suffer periodic episodes of significant fog during peak travel times which are too often deadly hazardous. Louisiana drivers have lots of experience driving in all kinds of rainy weather, but significant rain storms and poor road conditions are a bad combination.

Louisiana ’s Railroads and Transportation Accidents

Because of our position as a major rail hub, particularly for petrochemicals, and the large amount of open land in parts of the state, we also have a high concentration of railroad crossings in rural and semi-rural settings. These railroad crossings are often older and harder to maintain properly than those in urban areas, and offer less warning and protection to passenger vehicles crossing the tracks at times when trains are in the area. Train engineers are also tempted to run their routes at higher speeds in rural areas than they would in more populated areas in order to keep on schedule. Since so many of our rail cars carry high volume hazardous petrochemicals, accidents at railroad crossings pose a special risk to our citizens.

Individual Economic Challenges & Accidents

A significant portion of Louisiana’s population endures serious economic challenges day to day. One inevitable consequence of limited income and financial resources is that the vehicles they drive tend to be older (and therefore less safely designed). Some drivers do not have the wherewithal to maintain their vehicles as they should, or replace tires, belts, and other parts as often as recommended for safe driving. These maintenance issues can become safety issues during sudden car emergency situations, and lead a greater number, and more serious degree, of car accidents.

Financial limitations partially explain why some drivers have inadequate or no vehicle insurance at all to protect themselves, and increase the premium burden on others who do. The lack of adequate health insurance coverage also means that those hurt in an accident may not seek proper medical attention after an accident, or delay going until complications set in, or not get expensive diagnostic tests or medications to better treat their injuries. These delays may ultimately cause more long lasting health problems, and undoubtedly increase individual suffering in the meantime.

Louisiana ’s Governmental Challenges & Transportation Accidents

Economic challenges are not limited to our citizens. Our state highways and bridges are part of an aging civil engineering infrastructure here. Out annual road repair and replacement budgets are not optimal. In the past, sometimes road repairs were delayed or poorly performed due to lack of oversight, patronage and political corruption.

There have been significant issues with respect to highway design, such as the historical extensive use of grassy medians on Louisiana highways without barriers, which allow out of control vehicles to careen into oncoming traffic on the other side of roadways, with predictably disastrous results. These past faults are expensive and time consuming to fix, and a serious drain on road budgets already strained.

Louisiana ’s Transportation Accident Present & Future

Each of these transportation facts of life is reflected in repeated news reports of serious accidents and delays on our major highway system, with accompanying medical damage to our citizens, property damage, economic costs, loss of productivity, harm to the environment, and reduction in our overall quality of life. All our citizens need to work to remedy the underlying causes of road failure, poor maintenance, and congestion to help reduce the toll in lost lives, shattered health, and economic losses for the future.

In the meantime, for all those injured in car wrecks and truck and train collisions today, only experienced competent legal counsel can help compensate for those far too frequent and numerous losses. A good choice would be a firm that is centrally located in Baton Rouge, the heart of Louisiana’s transportation hub, as well as its political center, and the home of the state’s major research university and the technical and scientific expertise of its respected faculty and professional staff.

Contact an experienced transport accident lawyer at Kleinpeter & Schwartzberg, LLC today.