Wrecks Not Rare On Airport Road It Can Be Deceptive, Kenner Police Warn Submitted by N.O.V.A. July 2005 Times Picayune 02-7-1998 ************************************************* Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Despite its 35-mph speed limit, the access road of New Orleans International Airport, the site of a head-on collision that killed a 5-year-old New Orleans boy Tuesday night, is among the most dangerous in Kenner, Police Chief Nick Congemi said Friday. "For one thing, there's no divider between the opposing lanes, and there are subtle curves in the road that make it very easy to wind up in an oncoming lane," Congemi said. "If you turn your head away even to adjust the radio, you can drift out of your lane." Zemarie Aschalew Kebede was killed after a driver accused of being drunk went onto the shoulder of the road's southbound land, then swerved into oncoming traffic and the Kebede family's car in the northbound lane. The New Orleans area Chamber of Commerce urged the airport to install a divider between the opposing traffic lanes in 1994, but Aviation Director Edward Levell Jr. responded that the airport didn't have the money. The airport has been seeking money for dividers through the Regional Planning Commission, officials said. The Kenner Police Department patrols the access road, which links Interstate 10 with the airport and Airline Highway, but Congemi said enforcement of the speed limit isn't as stringent as it used to be because it has proved difficult to change people's driving habits on that stretch. "It's not like you have the same people driving through the area every day," he said. "And the cab drivers have radios, so they can pass the word along when you're there. The only way you could make a difference is to have an officer there 24 hours a day, which isn't feasible." Kenner police have written 495 traffic tickets on the road since Jan. 1, 1995, most for speeding, and 48 DWI citations since 1990, Sgt. Steve Caraway said. No figures were available on the number of accidents, Caraway said, but "we've had a lot of serious fender-benders out there over the years." And like several other serious accidents on the road, the one that killed Zemarie Aschalew Kebede involved a collision with an oncoming car. Kebede's family had just picked up his father, Aschalew Kebede, at the airport when the accident occurred Tuesday about 10:15 p.m. Kebede had returned from his native Ethiopia after visiting his mother, who recently was diagnosed with a brain tumor, said friends at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Kebede was a doctoral student there. The family was driving home in their 1987 Honda Accord when Kerry Jackson, 44, driving a 1988 Chevrolet Blazer, drove off the road onto the shoulder. He pulled the car back onto the road, but overcompensated and pulled across the two southbound lanes into the path of the Kebedes' car, police said. Zemarie Aschalew Kebede died at the scene. Aschalew Kebede, 37, who was driving, was treated for a leg injury and released from Kenner Regional Medical Center. His wife, Seble Telahun Kebede, 34, was upgraded from serious to stable condition Friday after surgery at the same hospital. Another son, Yashanew Aschalew Kebede, 7, was treated and released. No one in the Kebedes' car was wearing a seat belt. Jackson, whose driver's license and vehicle registration have a Capitol Heights, Md., address, was booked with DWI, vehicular homicide and reckless driving. He was listed in stable condition in Charity Hospital's prison ward. head-There have been other head-on collisions on the access road in recent years. In 1990, a St. Rose man was killed when he crossed into the oncoming lane and collided with a taxicab. A man was critically injured in 1996 when his northbound truck crossed the center line, sideswiped a southbound vehicle and crashed into a sign. The speed limit was lowered to 35 mph shortly after Kenner police officer Edwin N. Loeffler was struck and critically injured by a drunken driver as he investigated a minor two-car accident on the side of the road in 1986. The car that hit him was going 60 mph. Congemi said Kenner police investigated accidents on the road then, but the airport was responsible for general traffic enforcement. The department took over speed enforcement several years later, he said. "It's basically a private road," Congemi said. "It's on airport property, even though it's outside the fenced area." The road, which was opened in 1975, is often used by St. Charles Parish residents as a shortcut to Interstate 10 or Veterans Memorial Boulevard. Caraway said police do not think Jackson had business at the airport. The Federal Aviation Administration, which helped pay for the road, urged the airport to close it to through traffic when Interstate 310 in St. Charles was completed. A 1991 study gave the option of levying a 50-cent toll on the road to push traffic onto the interstate. The parish's link to the interstate was completed in 1993, but airport spokeswoman Michelle Duffourc said there are no plans to limit access to the road. The seminary has started a fund to pay for the Kebede family's funeral and air fare expenses to Ethiopia. Tax-deductible donations can be made to the Emergency Student Aid Fund, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 3939 Gentilly Blvd., New Orleans, La. 70126-4858. For information, call 282-4455.