BATON ROUGE — East Baton Rouge Parish has been hit hard by fatal crashes this year.

According to the Center for Analytics and Research in Transportation Safety, there have been 29 fatal crashes suspected to be caused by distracted driving in 2024. 

Greg Fischer with the State Highway Safety Commission said May and September are the two deadliest months. He says there are a lot of reasons that contribute to crash fatalities, but taking your eyes off the road for a few seconds may come at a deadly cost.

“If you’re driving 55 mph and you take your eyes off the road for five seconds, you’ve already driven the lengths of five football fields,” Fischer said.

In September, a pedestrian was killed in a major crash on Magnolia Bridge Road and Greenwell Springs Road. Earlier that month, four people were injured in a separate crash in Central, where some residents believe distracted driving played a key role.

"It's a whole lot of distracted driving and speeding. If people paid attention and weren't playing on phones and just obeyed the speed limit," Central resident Hunter Callahan said.

Earlier this month a 25-year-old mother died in a crash on Highland Road.

State Police said the capital region usually has the highest rate of fatal crashes in the state. Troopers said they cannot specifically measure how many result from distracted driving because they do not always subpoena phone records for every fatal crash.