GOLDEN MEADOW, La. — Neighbors are demanding change after three people died when their car ran off a narrow, two-lane road and into Bayou Lafourche.
Three people, including a toddler, died in the crash.
"We could see if they're going to do something about the shoulder of the roads, or we could see how many gonna flat up die from it," Christine Borne said.
Following a tragic crash that claimed the lives of three people in Golden Meadow on LA-308, family members of the victims are upset.
“You have no room for error,” Borne said.
Borne is Michael Barthelemy’s aunt. Louisiana State Police said Bathelemy was driving a pickup truck carrying his 2-year-old daughter Tricia and his nephew Zachary Cheramie Monday night when he likely overcorrected and crashed into the bayou.
But Borne says that could have been preventable.
The tragic accident has officials like Lafourche Parish Councilman Daniel Lorraine revisiting the push for more improvements in an area he says many have crashed.
"If you go off the road and you hit this dip you are going to lose control," Lorraine said. "I'm trying to get them to paint the lines."
But he says it’s an uphill battle because the Department of Transportation and Development considers this part of Louisiana too rural, making it a low priority for them.
"We had an accident just three weeks ago where we had a fatality where a man ran into a truck,” said Windell Curole with the South Lafourche Levee District. “We've had an 18 wheeler turn over this past summer.”
Curole says there are other dangerous areas of Lafourche Parish, including the curve by the Leon Theriot Flood Gate where 308 merges with LA-1. After asking for DOTD to help straighten this area for safety, he had to turn to flood protection money to improve the road and the lock at the same time.
"You have the offshore people, maybe 13,000, you have Grand Isle that people go to and it's less time to go down 308." Curole said.
DOTD tells us the area of LA-308 near East 165th Street is not on the abnormal crash list, saying only two accidents have happened there in the last three years. However, they did say that the department “has an overlay project scheduled in this area in the 2021 time frame and, if funding is available, additional shoulders could be a part of the project.
Christine Borne just hopes it happens in time to prevent more deaths.