BROUSSARD, LA – It hasn’t been a great year for railroad accidents. There has been a huge increase in both serious injuries and death resulting from trying to ‘beat the train’ – which has never been advisable, considering that trains aren’t getting any smaller or any slower.
But authorities in the the Acadia Parish and Iberia Parish are now planning to combat the increase in railroad crossing-related accidents through the installation of stunt jump ramps.
The ramps, which will allow the daredevils to express themselves without the danger of being hit by an oncoming train, will start to be installed later this year. Scott Pfeiffer, of the Louisiana Department of Railroad Safety (LDRS) said this is all long overdue.
“We’re delighted to see that positive steps have been made to ensure that drivers can safely cross railroads”, he said, “We strongly encourage drivers to put the pedal to the metal and take the jumps at a minimum of 50mph. This is to ensure that trains will be completely bypassed, and the fact that it looks cool as hell. Real Dukes of Hazzard stuff.”
He also said that the flashing crossing lights will be replaced with speakers, that will play a range of songs to let you know when a train is approaching.
“We felt that the whole light thing was a little outdated”, he explained, “So we’ll be installing loud-speakers that will play a range of songs such as ‘Folsom Prison Blues‘ by Johnny Cash, ‘Born To Be Wild‘ by Steppenwolf, and a few Motörhead songs in order to get drivers in the zone. It also doubles as a safeguard to let them know when a train is coming.”
And Pfeiffer even hinted at the possibility of turning the whole experience into “a little competition” further down the line.
“We’re also considering installing cameras at each crossing”, he said,”From this we may allow people to challenge each other to see who can do the best stunt jump. Kind of like the whole stunt jump reward feature on Grand Theft Auto. We’d watch these via the cameras, give each one a score, and send the best driver each month something like – I don’t know – a gift card or something. The main thing is that we’ll be minimizing the whole ‘car meet train’ thing. That’s our priority.”