Drivers around the Ville Platte vicinity recently complained about their tires being punctured after littered nails were strewn about on different area highways.
The highways were U.S. 167, La. 10, La. 29, and La. 748.
Officials from the Department of Transportation and Development told KATC-TV in Lafayette the nails were being thrown “on the road on purpose.”
Billy Oliver with DOTD told KATC, “They’re not all continuous routes. They’re all separate routes. The four routes are not all on a straight line so they would have to go through a zig-zag route to get through all those four different locations. That tells me it’s somebody that did some deliberate things.”
The Ville Platte Gazette reached out to one of the drivers who picked up multiple nails in her tire.
“I got lucky it didn’t ruin my tires,” said Anne Fontenot Reed of Pine Prairie. She fell victim to the nails on the Vidrine Road.
“I had five nails in my tires, and, luckily, they didn’t go all the way through,” Reed commented. “It didn’t even give me a flat. Other vehicles had to get flats fixed, and one person I know in Grand Prairie had a ruined tire.”
Reed then commented how she did not realize her tires were affected until she got to work. “Someone told me about it, so, on my break, I went look at my tires and saw a nail,” she said. “On my lunch break, I drove to Wal-Mart TLE, and they found five nails. Thank God my tires weren’t damaged.”
DOTD crews, over the weekend, were dispatched to the highways and used magnets to remove the nails.
Image
TONY MARKS Associate Editor