The question arises from time-to-time: why not document all injuries to better capture the scale of traffic violence?
I understand the desire for this, yet it’s uninformed.
One recent collision exemplifies why.
Just before 7 on the morning of December 11, 2024, a driver struck a pedestrian near 61 Arch Street. The photos above and below were taken on December 12, 2024.
The pedestrian — neither identity nor identifying details have been made public — was listed as receiving critical, life-threatening injuries. The last update I could see about this victim was made several hours after the collision.
As of the end of December, I have seen no media updates made about the victim’s condition. Are they recovering? Have they been released from the hospital? Are they in the same shape? Does their condition vary from day-to-day? It’s possible the person has passed, and the media did not provide that update, though we might not know until either the motorist is arrested and/or the collision is entered into the Connecticut Crash Data Repository.
This collision happened less than 200 feet from where a pedestrian was killed on Arch Street at the end of May, so you’d think a bit more would have been made of it; you’d think that, except the crash that killed an unidentified 45-year old female never received media coverage.
There are typically several fatal pedestrian crashes every year in Connecticut that the media never reports on at all and several where the victim’s status is not updated in the media when those injuries prove fatal. This is why when I report the number of fatalities, I usually phrase it as “drivers have killed at least 64 pedestrians/cyclists this year in Connecticut.” Our systems for disseminating information are imperfect.
If it is this challenging to receive accurate, timely information about a health status that is not really subjective — alive or not — then you can imagine what happens when trying to parse the nature of someone’s injuries.
For one, there’s the matter of patient confidentiality. What is broken, bruised, and bleeding is generally not shared by the media. The most common information that they will provide is a general status: “critical condition” vs “serious but not life-threatening injuries” vs. “minor injuries.”
How are reporters getting their info? Pay attention to what they say. Also in December, another driver in New Britain struck two pedestrians on Broad Street at Booth Street. The reporter for NBC Connecticut said this: “A man was taken to the hospital with serious injuries and is currently in critical condition. Another man has minor injuries, according to police.” According to police.
Injury information is typically being delivered to reporters by police, who are not medical professionals. Without providing an examination, more serious injuries could appear minor. I’ve shared this here before, but a friend who was hit by a driver in Hartford originally had his injuries described as minor. He was transported to the hospital with broken bones and required an immediate surgery. He needed a subsequent surgery and quite a bit of rehabilitation. I would not describe injuries requiring general anesthesia to be minor. This happened during Covid before the vaccine, adding another layer of risk. He petitioned and eventually had the injury severity adjusted on the crash report, but I would not assume every person does that. In any case, there’s a delay between what is initially reported and what might be amended.
Tracking every injured pedestrian/cyclist in a timely way is also difficult because the media drastically under-report collisions that result in minor injuries, along with those that are more serious where the driver stays on the scene. Although most of these will make it into the CT Crash Data Repository, eventually, those reports don’t arrive there for weeks or months.
As of December 28, the most recent report of a pedestrian crash with injuries in Hartford is December 24. Does this mean there is a lag in reporting or no injuries since then? There are two reports from December 26 showing two motor vehicle crashes in which three drivers received “possible” injuries. What does that even mean?
The point here is that trying to capture the full spectrum of traffic violence is nearly impossible with the resources available. (Though, the best way to get a sense of the scale of this is to get into the CT Crash Data Repository, narrow the date range to the full preceding year or two, click on “injury of any type”, and hit the “run query” button. That’ll be an incredibly overwhelming experience for most people. From there, narrow to your town and look again. Chances are, you’ll have only been aware of a few of those collisions. Narrow it again so results only show pedestrians and cyclists.
You can do all of that, but the information is not always valuable because of that aforementioned subjectivity and vagueness in how injuries are reported.
It’s also somewhat distracting.
In an ideal world, nobody would be crashing into anything or anyone.
When advocates pushed for red-light cameras in Connecticut, opposing organizations spread distorted information. They claimed that stop-light cameras lead to more collisions; while that is not incorrect, they omitted very important information from this misleading claim. The red-light cameras significantly reduced serious crashes — the kind that lead to serious injuries and deaths. The collisions that increased were minor, of the fender bender variety. Nobody wants property damage, but between a dented bumper and painful injuries (with the hospital bills to go with them), I know which outcome I would choose.
Another point to consider is one I can’t say better than the authors of Let This Radicalize You: “If spitting horrifying facts at people changed minds and built movements, we would have overthrown the capitalist system long ago, because the facts have always been on our side. To move past the expectation that facts alone will transform people’s politics, we have to sit with our discomfort that oftentimes people know.”
I believe it is important to share with people what extreme traffic violence looks like, while keeping in mind that some people know and are simply not moved by that, as unbelievable as that can seem to anyone with a soul.
My focus is and has been on reducing the most serious collisions — the ones that send families into mourning. This requires serious, all-in solutions. Not gestures like surrender flags for pedestrians to wave while crossing a multi-lane road. Not more hi-vis signs announcing the presence of pedestrians. I’m talking about actions that do something other than let decision-makers feel like they have checked a box. Not all decision-makers are moved by the desire to reduce harm. Some are more motivated by their desire to remain in office and by what their legacy looks like.
We likely won’t know for a few weeks or more how many pedestrians/cyclists were indeed killed by drivers in Connecticut from crashes that happened in 2024, but as of the end of the year, we know that the number of preventable deaths is at least 64. The vast majority of those happened on State of Connecticut maintained roads: State routes and interstate highways. While the Connecticut DOT has control over improving the conditions on those roads, we should never underestimate the power of municipal decision-makers when it comes to getting the DOT to reduce speed limits, add sidewalks, remove travel lanes, and more on State routes. There’s direct control and then there’s influence, and anyone who has been elected or appointed to office and claims that there is nothing they can do needs to be reminded that they can be replaced by someone with the chutzpah to at least try.
Before reading about the preventable pedestrian fatalities from December, a quick note about a crash in November. The one in West Hartford on Sedgwick Road, in addition to ending Anne Rapkin’s life, also killed her beloved dog Rosie.
PORTLAND
Route 17-A
December 18, 2024
Shaun Manning, 58, was a lifelong resident of Portland. He’d been a firefighter for his entire adult life and was recently serving on the Portland Board of Selectmen. About 6:20 PM on December 18, 2024, he was crossing the road to attend a meeting where he was to be appointed to the role of First Selectman and celebrated for that.
Instead, a driver slammed into him on Route 17-A, across from the police department. He died at the hospital.
Not much has been said about why a motorist did not avoid making contact with Shaun, similar to how not much has been said about why a motorist did not avoid making contact with Anne and Rosie in West Hartford. Had the motorist been a bad driver with a stolen vehicle or a bad driver who left the scene after crashing, we would have heard all about that. When it’s a bad driver who is sober or a bad driver who is a very important person or a bad driver who stays put and calls for help, the media doesn’t have a whole lot to say. It makes one wonder if there is an appetite to get to the bottom of this problem to prevent future serious injuries and deaths, or if there is merely appetite for identifying a scapegoat and getting people riled up.
It’s not a challenge to see how casual recklessness is possible. Route 17A has four travel lanes and a parking lane. There is no median. The posted speed limit is 25 MPH; however, the road design allows much higher speeds to be traveled without effort. With all that extra space afforded outside of rush hour, people can easily go faster than is safe. Narrow spaces slow most people down, and with the oversized vehicles that are extra deadly to those outside of them, we need even slower speeds than we think. As Streetsblog recently shared, “pedestrians hit at the average crash speed of 27 miles per hour by median-height cars have a 60 percent chance of suffering moderate injuries, but that figure rises to 83 percent when they are struck by a median-height pickup truck at that same speed.”
In May 2024, in the same area, a driver hit a skateboarding 14-year old boy; the child suffered a broken femur and pelvis, and reportedly needed surgery for these injuries. He was hit by someone driving a Ford Ranger; because it was a 1989 model — meaning that it was not a monster truck — the teen had a shot of surviving his injuries, which I’ll go ahead and call serious. Breaking the largest bone in the body is a serious injury.
We could beg motorists to be more careful, but all the begging has not worked over the last century. We could lower the speed limit, an empty gesture on its own. Those are examples of doing nothing.
We could give makeovers to streets so that the design encourages slower, more reasonable speeds. And, we can lobby to make vehicles safer for those outside of them.
What makes more of a difference will take more effort. You tell someone in mourning that their loved one isn’t worth that effort. I dare you.
Shaun was known in his community, and he has a family left to grieve him.
DANBURY
Route 53
December 24, 2024
Since 2015 there have been at least 78 crashes with injuries at the intersection of Route 53 (Main Street) and Liberty/West in Danbury. At least six of those injured were pedestrians. The crash diagrams publicly viewable in the Connecticut Crash Data Repository show that in five of those six pedestrian collisions, the people walking were definitely using the marked crosswalk. The outlier has a diagram that does not make sense, as it does not show where the motorist hit the pedestrian — the diagram portrays a vehicle several lanes away from the pedestrian, who is depicted as being next to the crosswalk. There were two wrecks in one day here on September 18, 2023; one of these involved an elderly driver sideswiping a school bus and then crashing into a building. The SUV driver was reportedly injured, but not the bus driver nor any of the passengers (all adults).
At 8:28 PM on February 6, 2018 the 18-year old driver of a VW made a left turn from Route 53 onto Liberty Street, striking and killing a 58-year old man using the crosswalk.
On the evening of December 24, 2024 around 9:15, another driver killed another pedestrian at this same intersection. It was not until December 30, 2024 that the media identified the deceased as 52-year old Felix A. Saquinaula.
His obituary shared little about his life except that Felix was “born in Sigsig, Ecuador on August 9, 1972 son of the late Alfonso Saquinaula and Carmen Saquinaula Caivinagua.”
When it comes to improving streets, what we know is that Danbury has talked a good game.
In a January 2019 Transit-Oriented Development Study, the City of Danbury shouted out the City of Hartford for its gutsy choice to eliminate parking minimums:
The context: a document showing how downtown Danbury can be improved. Or, in their own words:
“Downtown Danbury is well-positioned to develop its economy by building on the momentum of recent investment in downtown housing, retail, and educational and community institutions. Its rail and bus transit services will contribute to this economic and community growth and become more effectively utilized as a result. While Danbury’s transit services are not primarily responsible for attracting recent investment, they are perceived as a valuable amenity. Continued real estate development, creation of destination places, and public improvements will help produce a more walkable urban setting that in turn will make transit a more attractive transportation choice and provide additional transit riders. This will progressively reduce traffic generation and infrastructure demands from new development, make better use of existing infrastructure, and broaden the availability of quality transportation choices.”
The next 138 pages or so are spent describing what these changes can look like.
The Project Concept Plan indicated that the intersection of Route 53 and Liberty/West would, if the proposal were accepted, receive an upgrade. These weren’t especially ambitious plans, but would have been noticeable. Basically, this proposal was for cobble pattern stamped concrete at the intersection along with enhanced crosswalks. You can see a rendering of this concept below:
It’s a better-than-nothing idea that isn’t as deliciously radical as removing multiple lanes or adding physical medians, but the kind of changes that are relatively inexpensive, and thus, quicker to implement — in theory.
I don’t have the opportunity to get down to Danbury any time soon, so I have to rely on what Google’s mapping technology provides. The last street view images were taken in April 2023; as of then, there is no special stamped intersection or street murals, or anything at all, that has been done to improve the walkability of this intersection. The satellite view from 2024 does not reveal any changes either.
Did this proposal simply wither away? We are six years out from that publication.
Even if the crash data showed fewer collisions, this couldn’t be considered a low-priority area. At or close to the intersection is where you can find the Danbury Public Library, the Naugatuck Valley Community College Danbury Campus, The Palace Theatre, offices, shops, and a little park. This is a 0.3 mile walk from the Danbury train station.
In the 2019 document, the City of Danbury says it has an ongoing initiative to “Provide infrastructure to ensure walkability for all community residents and downtown visitors.” With two pedestrians killed at the same intersection since 2018, it feels reasonable to ask if the City is still engaged with its own initiative.
This was Danbury’s second fatal pedestrian crash of the year.
WEST HAVEN
Campbell Avenue
December 29, 2024
“Jaymie’s inconsolable family includes…” is how the second line of her obituary begins.
Sit with that for a moment.
It is safe to assume that this sentiment could be said for the other 63 pedestrians/cyclists who needlessly died in Connecticut this year. That’s at least 64 people whose deaths have left inconsolable family, friends, coworkers because, in almost every situation, bureaucrats chose to support a broken status quo rather than to push for street and vehicle design improvements.
Jaymie Marazzi Taylor, age 47 of West Haven, was struck by a motorcycle driver as she crossed Campbell Avenue around 10 PM on one of the final days of 2024.
Before her life was cut short, “Jaymie’s unconditional love of her family and friends extends to her aunts, uncles, cousins, and her posse of girlfriends. She began her career as a hair stylist at the age of 22 at Paul & Co. and never left. Her family at the salon truly became an extension of her life and family. An amazing cook, one to call for anything, no questions asked, Jaymie loved to dance and genuinely befriended anyone, anywhere. She rarely left her house unless she was impeccably dressed.”
It is not necessary to know all the details of a situation to share and comment on what is known.
Campbell Avenue is a long, mostly straight road. It’s a bus route with housing, restaurants, and other businesses.
In April 2017, there were two separate fatal crashes on Campbell Avenue. One of these happened 0.2 miles north and the other 0.2 miles south of where a motorcycle’s driver collided with Jaymie. In both of those 2017 crashes, the motorcycle operator was killed after colliding with another motor vehicle, and in both, the motorcyclists were traveling on Campbell Avenue. You would think that after two fatal motorcycle crashes within days on the same road that West Haven would look at Campbell Avenue and find ways to prevent more fatalities. There isn’t so much as a speed hump in the area. Usually drivers are not injured in fatal crashes with pedestrians or cyclists, but in this case the motorcycle’s operator was sent to the hospital in critical condition.
While those who knew Jaymie — and other traffic violence victims — are inconsolable, those without any direct connection to her have the capacity right now to do more than grieve.
This was West Haven’s third fatal pedestrian crash of the year
Beyond Thoughts and Prayers
Traffic violence is not an Act of God. Humans made these roads and designed these vehicles.
Here is who to connect with about redesigning deadly roads so that they do a better job of keeping Connecticut residents and visitors alive:
Do you live in Portland or spend a lot of time on Route 17A?
Reach out to the Portland First Selectman ( rcurley@portlandct.org ),
DPW ( dpwdirector@portlandct.org ),
Public Safety ( EOC@portlandct.org ),
Fire Department ( rpuida@portlandct.org ),
and Police Department ( rlombardi@portlandct.org ).
Why so many addresses? Easy. Shaun was obviously well-known and well-liked in town. Those who might not normally have much to say about road design should definitely be asked how the road will be improved so that this kind of tragedy won’t happen again. Portland deserves better than a Main Street that looks like it was designed to race through as if the town has nothing to offer. Solve the damn problem!
Also, contact the CT DOT about this because it’s their trash design to more directly manage:
DOT.CustomerCare@ct.gov
860-594-2560
Are you a resident of Danbury or frequent user of Route 53?
Contact their 311 system ( cityline311@danbury-ct.gov ), and/or
call the Director of Public Works at (203) 797-4537
Also, contact the CT DOT about this because it’s also their trash design to more directly manage:
DOT.CustomerCare@ct.gov
860-594-2560
Are you a resident of West Haven of frequent user of Campbell Avenue?
Contact West Haven’s mayor at dborer@westhaven-ct.gov
or 203-937-3510.
Live in or travel through none of those places?
My look back at 2024 is coming soon and will include action ideas for anyone
