When you spend enough time looking at crash data, you know when something looks off.
A collision on May 21, 2024 in Hartford set off red flags.
It’s not that the location of the crash — 244 New Park Avenue — was particularly surprising. It’s a thoroughly lousy road, with faded bike lanes that were never respected from the moment they were painted. I’ve biked on it twice and won’t do it again until the whole thing has been substantially renovated. There are too many curb cuts (driveways) and too many lanes, with a too high speed limit.
What caught my attention, though, was that the vehicle in the diagram is a police vehicle and that it’s positioned in a way that makes no sense for a motorist if they are in fact driving straight as the report in the Crash Data Repository claims.
If I were to describe what’s portrayed in this crash diagram, I would say that the cyclist was traveling straight ahead, with traffic, in the legal direction and position on the road, and that the police vehicle had been driven in front of the cyclist.
Had there been a driveway in this area to turn into, I would even see how this could be an unintentional strike. It would show inattention on part of the driver, but would seem like nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to motorists hitting cyclists.
Where this crash occurred, though, there is no intersecting driveway or road. It’s just a long fenced off area between the movie theater and supermarket. Although not drawn, the closest driveway on this side of the road is not until directly across from Kane Street — the supermarket driveway.
Then, I remembered, there had been a robbery in this area. I looked it up, and while names are not used in the Crash Data Repository, all the information checks out between what is there and what was in the news about the robbery: Both the suspect and injured cyclist were 38-year old men. Both the arrest and the crash happened in the same area of Hartford, even though the robbery itself was in West Hartford, half a mile away. Same day and time of day. The suspect had reportedly fled on a bicycle.
So, when we’re looking at a diagram of a Chevy Tahoe SUV’s driver maneuvering this large vehicle in front of a cyclist, hitting him and then a fence at 244 New Park Avenue in Hartford, we have more context, yet still more questions.
We-Ha.com reported that the suspect “sustained non-life-threatening injuries and was transported to an area hospital. The nature of his injuries was not disclosed, but police said he was released from the hospital and then processed and charged at the West Hartford Police Department.”
Did they not ask police questions about how those injuries were sustained — during the robbery or when a vehicle was driven across the path of a cyclist?
If I’m misreading what looks like a very clear crash diagram that the police themselves provided, then they’re welcome to release their video footage to the media showing how this crash was a cruiser traveling straight ahead while a cyclist crashed while trying to overtake it.
This is not a discussion about whether or not a person accused of armed robbery (it was a fake weapon, by the way) should be treated like a fellow human being when being detained. The problem here is that anyone would intentionally drive a vehicle in front of a vulnerable road user, especially in the area where Elmwood and Hartford’s Parkville neighborhood meet. Pedestrians and cyclists are common here and this could have easily been a case of mistaken identity. The public has very little recourse when it comes to crimes committed by police, and when we talk specifically about those who are most likely to be biking in this area, who are unlikely to be able to afford an attorney, the chances for justice drop even more. Anyone who’s been paying attention over the last few years knows this.
Less than three weeks before this incident, just about one block north of the same supermarket on that map, a cyclist was killed when the driver of another large vehicle made a left turn without so much as slowing, striking the cyclist head on. The motorist was predictably demonized by the media because he did not stick around, and because he was not an officer. This driver had not intended to hit the cyclist, but was not driving responsibly by his own admission; this fatality was enabled through road design that does not encourage motorists to actually stop and look before turning, and by the fact that no additional licensing is required of those driving large vanity pickup trucks that are proven more deadly to pedestrians and cyclists.
There are double standards that we need to get real with, but won’t for an array of reasons, some of which made themselves obvious this week when some individuals who have not been named publicly made death threats against some Wethersfield town council members over their decision to not fly the incendiary flag thin blue line flag. Last week, not for the first time, I received harassing direct messages from trolls, presumably because they didn’t agree that the media should humanize civilian pedestrian victims the way the media humanizes police pedestrian victims — though it’s more likely that they did not even read the article in the first place, and were merely reacting to whatever inaccurate summary was fed to them, as is the way many people operate these days.
If you can see the problem with a person ingesting drugs and then swerving into a pedestrian on the highway because they broke their own ability to operate heavy machinery, you should be able to see the issue here with someone driving in front of a cyclist intending to stop him. Last week, I watched a driver speed through a solid red light on Broad Street without running the police vehicle’s lights or sirens; this was in Hartford, about three blocks from where last September, the driver of a Honda Accord blew through a red light striking a Chevy Impala, killing the police officer in the passenger seat. Recklessness is recklessness, whether someone is impaired or sober, in uniform or not, wearing dark colors or hi-vis reflective gear. Nobody, regardless of the kind of flag they wave or badge they possess, has the right to endanger others.
Right now, West Hartford’s Town Engineer is attempting to make choices that fit with the Town’s Complete Street Policy, using that policy to ease the way for the bicycle lanes, in both directions, coming soon to four blocks of Boulevard, west of South Main Street. In a letter to property owners near the incoming bike lanes, he wrote: “Complete Streets enable safe, comfortable, and convenient access for roadway users of all ages and abilities. Bike lanes provide many benefits and will be a positive addition to our community. They not only enhance safety and promote healthy lifestyles but also contribute to a more vibrant and sustainable neighborhood.” This sharpens the need for consistency across departments when it comes to how pedestrians and cyclists are treated, including by the police when they cross out of West Hartford and into Hartford to detain a suspect who could easily have been mistaken for any number of other cyclists in the area.