Three people were killed and three others injured Sunday night when a motorist lost control of her car, drove across the median and collided with an SUV on Interstate 12 south of Covington, authorities said.
The crash near the construction site of the Colonial Pinnacle Nord du Lac shopping center between U.S. 190 and Louisiana 21 comes as preliminary work is being done to prevent crossover accidents on I-12 in St. Tammany.
Monica Cohn, 34, of Hammond was driving a Nissan Altima west on I-12 about 7:15 p.m. when she veered from the left lane into the right lane, State Police spokesman Trooper Louis Calato said. Cohn abruptly steered left, sending the car out of control and spinning across the grassy median and into the eastbound lanes, where it was struck by a Chevy Tahoe driven by Vincent Jeanfreau, 33, of Lacombe, Calato said.
The SUV crashed into the car, sending both vehicles spinning off the roadway, Calato said.
"The one thing we don't expect is a vehicle to come across the median into our lane of travel, basically out of nowhere, " Calato said. "It happens so fast and so unexpectedly I don't believe Mr. Jeanfreau could have done anything to avoid this crash."
SUV rolled over, ejecting Jeanfreau's wife, 27-year-old Amanda Jeanfreau, Calato said. She was pronounced dead on the scene. Cohn and her passenger, 47-year-old Hollis Ard Jr. of Gretna, were also pronounced dead at the scene, he said.
Vincent Jeanfreau and two children in the SUV were taken to St. Tammany Parish Hospital near Covington by Acadian Ambulance, Calato said. Vincent Jeanfreau and a 7-year-old passenger had moderate injuries and an 18-month-old passenger had minor injuries, he said.
Crossovers accidents are especially dangerous, Calato said, since they typically result in head-on collisions or direct crashes into the side of a car.
In February, the state Department of Transportation and Development began a $5.2 million project to install cable barriers along the 32 miles of I-12 through St. Tammany. These barriers, made of metal cables strung between posts, stop cars as they travel across the medians and are expected to be completed by the summer.
"This is our first pilot program to install them and see how they work, " said Dustin Annison, a spokesman for the department. "You could see them popping up in different areas of the state."
Medians in St. Tammany, and most of Louisiana, are about 64 feet wide, Annison said. Federal guidelines say barriers are unnecessary for medians wider than 50 feet, he said.
The transportation department, or the private firms it contracts with, will be responsible for maintaining the cable barriers, to ensure they are kept tense enough to prevent accidents, said Brendan Rush, with the department of transportation.
St. Tammany was chosen as one of the first sites for the new barriers after a study of crashes from 2005 showed the parish had the second-highest rate of crossover accidents in the state. The department has already installed barriers on Airline Drive in St. Charles Parish and plans to begin adding them to Interstate 10 in St. James Parish by the end of the year.
In 2007, there were 10 crossover crashes along I-12 in St. Tammany Parish, compared with 9 each in Tangipahoa and Livingston parishes and 1 in East Baton Rouge Parish, according to the state transportation department.
There is no clear reason why St. Tammany sees more crossovers, Annison said.
"Crashes are hard to predict; you often can't find any particular patterns with them, " he said.
