Assisted by poor policy, street design, and vehicle design, drivers have killed 48 pedestrians/cyclists, so far, this year in Connecticut.
Before we take a look at the preventable losses and damages that happened on Connecticut’s roadways in September, it’s the season when we are reminded of the scapegoat. In times of yore, the practice was for folks to place their sins onto an animal, who when sacrificed, would absolve the community of their sin. And, here is my reading of that: if it worked, one wouldn’t need to keep doing it again and again. Pressing the blame onto one entity is not a way to make amends. It doesn’t involve careful examination of one’s own actions, it doesn’t require a person to make apologies, it doesn’t demand that they behave differently the next time faced with the same decision.
Last week, when a child riding his bicycle was struck in Avon, the news media and others chose their scapegoat; the only surprise was that for once it wasn’t the cyclist. It is hard to have compassion for a driver who not only did not immediately stop to assist the child he hit, but continued driving for four miles with the child on the roof of his vehicle. It’s without question a shitty response. But, most of us — thank God — will not have the first-hand experience of striking a person, and in particular, a minor, hard enough with a vehicle to do damage to them. We all presume to know how we will respond. It’s a lot like listening to people opine about how they would have acted had they been alive during Nazi Germany, only to see the same folks clam up when fascism rears its head in America this century. In their idealized vision of themselves, they would’ve punched a Nazi. In reality, they want to coast into retirement and not have uncomfortable conversations with their neighbors, so they do a whole lot of nothing.
Only after the driver’s mugshot was plastered everywhere did reporters begin dropping a few extra details into the story; most people aren’t reading the updates. They’ve already determined that the driver was a monster, and that’s that. Nevermind that the motorist claimed to have panicked that he would lose custody of his children. We live in a culture where we are force-fed the belief that “family is everything.” I’ll be generous and assume that the driver truly loves his children, but even if he doesn’t, he is someone no doubt steeped in this same value system. Society is not kind to those who have their children taken away from them.
The other details that came out included that he called the mother of his children, then his parents, and then the police. It may not be the order in which we believe we would have placed calls if in the same situation, but the phone call to the police was made — the cops didn’t have to go looking for the driver by piecing together video footage. It was not an ideal reaction that the driver had, but his callousness seemed to be momentary; he didn’t set his vehicle on fire and leave the country.
Another detail: the child who was hit was known for wearing a helmet and using lights on his bicycle.
A detail that reporters never bothered to name: Arch Road by Security Drive, where the crash most likely occurred, does not have sidewalks, nor bike lanes. The collision was noticed around 9:15 PM; crash reports from previous incidents at this intersection describe the area as not having lighting. This is near where the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail crosses over Arch Road.
Rail trails are amazing when one is on them, but the moment they cross another road, all bets are off. Most crossings are simply unsafe, as there is nothing like speed humps that might slow drivers down.
Avon knows they have a problem. Since 2018, drivers have hit at least two other cyclists on Arch Road. They even have one of these crashes marked in the Town of Avon Bicycle & Pedestrian Master Plan that was published in April 2023: 
Not fixing an error after several years feels worse than a momentary panicked lapse in judgment. It feels negligent.
The crash indicated on their map happened in June 2018 at the four-way intersection of Arch Road and Security Drive — same spot as the recent serious collision. It seems likely that the cyclist was trying to cross from one part of the trail to the other, which means going diagonally across the intersection.
Not on the town’s map was the crash that happened in another location on Arch Road in April 2024. The cyclist was riding on the narrow shoulder when clipped by a driver who apparently did not give the required three feet of space on a 35 MPH road. There is no sidewalk or sidepath here either.
Go to Google Maps and you can see someone cycling on Arch Road. It’s a place where people are cycling, and where drivers are hitting cyclists.
Arch Road is also a location that people identified as one that feels unsafe for walking and cycling: 
You can read the public comment here:
But was there anything in that plan for improving Arch Road? Has anything changed since then?
We can have our feelings about the driver who seriously injured the teen in Avon, but we can’t make a scapegoat out of him — not when the Town of Avon knew the road was a problem with its high speed, lack of sidewalks/sidepaths, and poor lighting. Let’s focus on preventing these collisions so that nobody else has to find out if they would act heroically, respectfully, or shamefully after running tons of metal and plastic into a child on a bike.
We almost made it through a full month without any known pedestrian/cyclist fatalities, but on the evening of September 28, 2024, a driver killed 88-year old Margaret Gillard in Trumbull. She was 0.1 mile from where she lived.
According to her obituary: “Margaret had a love for spirituality and medicine, which steered her toward becoming a nurse and earning a master’s degree in Pastoral Care. Her work in the field trained her to put others before self and that carried into her personal life. She devoted countless hours as a hospice volunteer, she was an ardent feminist, a voice for women’s rights, she loved her family fiercely, and was always available to anyone in need of a compassionate ear. A woman of great faith, Margaret was a devout Catholic and actively attended St. Martin’s RC Church in Amityville, NY and, most recently, St. Theresa Church in Trumbull. She was a voracious reader of varied topics and enjoyed discussing thoughts and ideas with others who shared similar interests. In recent years, Margaret converted her garage into what became known as her ‘She Shed’; it was a welcoming place where she and her beloved neighbors gathered to share laughs and support one another. Her passing will be felt as a tremendous loss to her family and the Long Hill Village community where she resided these past many years. She will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved her.”
An elderly woman should be able to, in the town center, walk safely. She shouldn’t die because nobody cared enough to design with love.
The Town of Trumbull chose to design in such a way that a pedestrian could be killed right by its Town Hall and library. The intersection has poor lighting, and as can be seen from the pic, the Town of Trumbull’s decision-makers could not be bothered to finish installing sidewalks or crosswalks. The speed limit on this section of Route 127 is apparently 35 or 40 MPH — there is no consistency in what police listed on crash reports from same location in the past two years.
This deadly and preventable collision happened at 7:20 PM.
If you’re someone who lives in Trumbull or uses Route 127 often, please contact the Town of Trumbull’s head of DPW with your demands for better pedestrian infrastructure by town hall: 203-452-5045 and gestrada@trumbull-ct.gov
It’s also reasonable to contact Trumbull’s First Selectperson 203-452-5005 and firstselectman@trumbull-ct.gov
