Trooper Hammons Talks I-10 Safety

Trooper Stephen Hammons, Public Information Officer for State Police Troop I visited 'Mornings With Ken and Bernie' today and discussed recent accidents on I-10, NIXEL and the use of emergency flashers.

An accident on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge this past Friday had contributing factors including excessive speed and inattentiveness. According to Hammons,

There was a jack-knifed 18 wheeler on the Basin Bridge with traffic backed up for a good stretch of highway when another 18 wheeler came onto the crash scene and rear-ended a number of vehicles. Since 18 wheeler drivers have an elevated view of the road you would think this driver would have been more aware of what was going on in front of him. We want to make sure we're aware of what is going on in front of us and looking ahead at all times.

We asked Trooper Hammons if it was illegal to travel with emergency flashers on and he replied,

You cannot use your emergency flashers to turn your vehicle into an emergency vehicle. In other words it is illegal to turn on your emergency flashers and break the speed limit to rush to a hospital. You can use your emergency flashers in hazardous driving conditions like heavy fog to warn other drivers behind you to slow down.

When asked if there was a way for motorists to learn of emergency driving conditions or closures Hammons said,

Yes, they can go to our website LSP.org and click on the X on the right side of the page just below the Facebook icon. That will take you to NIXEL for you to be able to sign up. You'll want to sign up for alerts for Troop I and Troop A to get notifications involving I-10 in the Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas.

You can listen to the entire interview by clicking here: