New Orleans drivers are so frequently prone to crashes that vehicle insurance rates there run higher than hereabouts.
Contributing to the high crash rates is their propensity to get behind the wheel after overimbibing. On a Sunday morning you only have to drive around Uptown before you encounter one of those traffic signals mounted on a decorative pole flattened by an errant motorist who continued his revelry behind the wheel.
And it’s getting worse.
In September we noticed a house on Tchoupitoulas Street that had been knocked ajar on its foundation. While I was making a photo, a nearby resident stopped and filled me in. A drunk driver in his pickup had lost control on Tchoupitoulas and struck several parked vehicles before crashing into the house.
The occupants were at home when the crash occurred and had been terrified, so great was the crash. The house is across from the grocery store that we visit several times daily, so we’ve monitored the outcome. It was a shotgun single next to the street with a one-story, camelback addition on back. The shotgun part was so knocked out of square from the crash that workers have completely torn it down. It is being completely replaced with new construction.
Then shortly after midnight, December 21, a drunk driver ran a stop sign on Valmont Street, crashed into a vehicle passing on Magazine Street and knocked it through the front of Guy’s Po-Boys.
Guy’s is a landmark, no-frills po-boy shop where each sandwich is built one at a time by Guy and an assistant.  During lunchtime their hands blur as they assemble them for the crowd of workers and Uptowners who squeeze into the restaurant.
Having Guy’s out of commission is bad enough, but out of commission during the holidays creates cosmic disruption for visitors anticipating a Guy’s Po-Boy as the de rigueur of their holiday visit.
Their dressed, shrimp po-boy is my favorite. It comes so loaded with fried shrimp that we split a large and have enough shrimp left over for another meal from what falls off while we’re trying to eat it.
Maybe Guy will get repairs made in time to serve Ole Miss fans on their way to the Sugar Bowl Friday.