CENTRAL — State Representative Lauren Ventrella says she is aware and working to do something about a dangerous stretch of roadway in Central that has resulted in numerous fatal crashes.
The road runs between the 19,000 and 23,000 blocks of Greenwell Springs, between Hooper and Wax Roads in the City of Central.
Unfiltered with Kiran has covered numerous crashes in Central on that stretch in the previous several months alone, including the death of Juan Guerra in early September. Guerra was a beloved father, a dedicated EMT, and a fire rescue employee at Angola’s Dept. of Corrections.
As a Central native, Ventrella says she’s witnessed numerous crashes tied to that stretch of road.
“I was raised near that road. My law office is situated on that road. There have been many times where I’ve seen people swerving and weaving and not paying attention but now more so than ever,” Ventrella said.
While the Louisiana Dept. of Transportation and Development told UWK a project is underway to add some additional safety measures to that stretch of road, Ventrella reached out to DOTD herself to get that project timeline moved up.
“Since putting a spotlight on this project with some of the recent fatalities and accidents that we’ve had, it’s shown the need to the Dept. of Transportation that we need to move this project and the specific details of the project is the reflective striping and the rumble strips and potentially more signs that project has now been moved from our request from 2026 to 2025,” Ventrella explained.
After numerous reports by UWK into the deadly stretch of roadway, Ventrella says the timeline has now moved up.
Ventrella is an injury attorney and discussed some potential liability issues the state could be putting itself in if more work isn’t done.
“The state either has to know or should have known of the hazard, failed to fix it, and additionally that hazard has to be the direct cause of the person’s injuries,” Ventrella explained.
Ultimately, Ventrella said one reason for the growing number of crashes could be the amount of distracted drivers on the road, especially now.
“There’s probably nothing that I can do to stop somebody from looking at their cell phone, getting on Tiktok when they’re driving to work, but what I can do is do everything in my power to ensure the projects that we know that will help stop some of the inattentiveness and some of the injuries and the deaths that are resulting from this conduct, to move that up and take that as a priority.”
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