BATON ROUGE – They’ve struck again!

Safety systems in the front parking lot of the State Capitol must have wanted the limelight again. Friday, as lawmakers toiled away in yet another special session to figure out the budget mess, there was a mess in the parking lot when a safety bollard smashed up and into the front of a car trying to access the secured parking lot.

The system – now three years old – was the talk of the downtown political landscape in 2015 when it claimed car after car.

“Another one bites the dust,” Matt Adams, a commissioner at the state’s collegiate authority, tweeted Friday about the latest snafu.

The bollards activated as a sedan was crossing over, pushing the car up, tearing off its bumper, mangling the side and leaving the car teetering partly off the ground.

Another one bites the dust #lalege pic.twitter.com/hH2eDgJB1g

— Matt Adams (@MattLAdams) June 22, 2018

In 2015, building officials blamed drivers – not the system – for issues reminding those who use the parking lot to follow directions and cross one vehicle at a time.

Among the victims then was state Rep. Paul Hollis who broke his hand and had a mild concussion when the bollards blew through his expensive Audi A8.

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