I plan a vacation and the drivers of Louisiana laugh

[pinstripe_bindi]

Guess I was due for another distracted driver piloting way more car than they know how to handle to hit me. I was coming home last night and going through the intersection at Chemin Agreable and Decon when a woman in a giant SUV and a baby in the car somehow missed that I was already in the intersection and clipped the corner of my passenger side

Comments

[fuzzilla]

Ugh! Hope it’s not too much hassle getting your car fixed.

[taz_39]

:(

[amw]

Why are the roads in Louisiana so bad? I noticed it when I was cycling across the state too, pot holes and cracks all over. I could understand it if it was those terrifyingly narrow (on a bike, squished between trucks and railings) elevated roads over the swamps - I guess they're harder to maintain - but in the dryer corners it seemed to be even worse. Can't just be a poverty thing either because neighboring states are also poor but have better roads.

[pinstripe_bindi]

It's several different things, including poverty, weather/high water table, and corruption coupled with where the money is coming from to maintain them. Louisiana has been notoriously corrupt since the Huey Long days, and public infrastructure is one of the easiest things to skim. Some of them are maintained with federal money, and that's harder to steal, but if they're maintained by the state it's open season. Some of them are maintained by the city or parish, and that really depends on who is currently in charge. Like Cameron Parish is a big empty parish with more hurricane landfalls than people, but the tax base is all petrochemical companies, and they benefit from well-maintained roads. I live in Vermilion Parish, which borders it, and if I go to Cameron for something you can tell the difference in the roads as soon as you cross the parish line. Same when you drive over the state line into Texas; the roads immediately become better-kept.