Louisiana rolls out campaign that highlights roundabout safety tips
Tuesday, October 11, 2016 at 2:16:46 PM
BATON ROUGE, La.— In its continued effort to promote safety for traveling motorists, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development is highlighting the benefits of roundabouts with a nearly three-week safety campaign that will run from October 10 to 28.
Roundabouts are one-way, circular intersections designed to improve safety and efficiency for motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians. The campaign aims to educate drivers on how to navigate roundabouts and their benefits. Roundabouts reduce crashes by decreasing stop-and-go traffic.
“A well-designed roundabout improves safety, operations, looks and feel of an intersection. Most importantly, roundabouts save lives,” DOTD Secretary Shawn D. Wilson, Ph.D., said. “With this campaign, we want to show motorists how to drive in a roundabout and how roundabouts benefit our communities and adjacent businesses by reducing severe crashes, improving traffic flow and ease access.”
Secretary Wilson’s voice is featured in the 30-second PSA airing in October on various radio and television stations statewide. View the public service announcement by clicking here.
Roundabouts reduce fatalities by 90 percent, injury crashes by 76 percent and pedestrian crashes by 30 to 40 percent. Roundabouts are also eco-friendly and help decrease fuel consumption and carbon emissions by reducing vehicle delay and the number and duration of stops, compared to signalized intersections. In addition, roundabouts are designed to accommodate oversized vehicles.
Here are the step-by-step instructions for safely navigating a roundabout:
• Start to slow down.
• Share the road.
• Yield to traffic.
• Proceed slowly to the right.
• Follow directional signs.
• Exit carefully.
In Louisiana, roughly 30 roundabouts have been constructed, and another 100 have been proposed.
DOTD has partnered with Louisiana Radio Network and Louisiana Broadcasters Association to air the PSAs a total of 15,000 times over various radio and TV stations. This effort is supported by the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission, the Louisiana Center for Transportation Safety at LSU, the Louisiana State Police, in coordination with the Strategic Highway Safety Plan Communications Coordinating Council and regional transportation safety coalitions which support Louisiana’s highway safety vision of Destination Zero Deaths.
To help Louisiana reach zero deaths, residents are encouraged to share campaign materials with family and friends.
In addition to PSAs, these regional coalitions will also help spread the word through their respective social media pages, using the hashtag #RoundaboutSafetyLA.
For more information about this campaign, visit www.destinationzerodeaths.com and click on “Share our Marketing Materials,” then Roundabouts.
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