HAMMOND, La. – As you pull up to the intersection of Wardline and Crapanzano roads near Hammond, it would be really hard to miss the stop sign.
“When you see that light, and it's flashing, it gets your attention,” said Gordon Burgess, Tangipahoa Parish president.
There are two yellow, flashing lights 500 feet before the stop sign in all directions.
“It will definitely let people know there is a stop ahead,” said Maurice Jordan, a Tangipahoa Parish engineer. “If you can't see that, you don't need to be driving."
These are Louisiana’s first solar powered stop signs. Simply put, the sun powers the lights, which give drivers a little extra heads up that a stop sign is ahead.
Engineers say those solar panels can store enough juice that, in theory, the lights should never go out. And the early reviews of this pilot program are very good so far.
“I think it's nice. It'll help the traffic to be more safe,” said one driver.
And that's the goal. This intersection was chosen because each day between 8,000 and 10,000 cars come through it, and it doesn't have a great safety record.
So far Tangipahoa is the only parish in this pilot program.
“Anything we can do to address these dangerous intersections, we're going to do so,” Burgess said.
“I think it will be a thing of the future,” Jordan said. “I really hope so, and we are already making applications for several more intersections in the parish to be signalized just like this.’
Federal safety dollars pay for the stop signs. This many flashing lights may seem like overkill, Jordan admits, but he says if they help reduce accidents and deaths on Tangipahoa roads, they're worth it.
The pilot program funded 10 Tangipahoa Parish intersections. The parish will now be installing the other nine.
