With any luck, this will be the year that news outlets do not merely recycle their past content declaring fall to be more dangerous for pedestrians. Even sources that seem more credible than others, like Houston Public Media, have made this claim.There are a few problems with that framing, including that there is never any context provided. For instance, in that Houston Public Media piece from last year, the statistics provided are about the percentage of pedestrian deaths out of total traffic violence deaths, along with injuries and how these numbers compared to what happened on Texas roadways. That gives to appearance of credibility, while Houston Public Media never actually talks about percentage of pedestrians killed in fall versus other times of the year. In other words, the whole piece is a farce. Without a point of comparison, what are we even talking about?
The ridiculousness is also known by their statement: “While Daylight savings time does not end until November, it starts to get darker in October, making it a dangerous month for pedestrians.”
I’m not picking on Texas. One of their more reputable sources is doing only what we see our own local news in Connecticut doing: making a claim that they do not ever support, compounded by statements that are scientifically incorrect.
To be clear, the argument I am making is not that pedestrians are equally safe or safer in darkness. More about that later, but first, let’s look at data and science:
This chart shows what percentage of pedestrian fatalities occurred when on Connecticut roadways in 2023 (these numbers are accurate as of September 3, 2024). You read the chart clockwise, starting with January at 8%. The month with the most fatalities last year was October, which is when 16% of known fatalities occurred; however, by this logic, you would expect the fewest fatalities to be in June, the month with the most daylight. May fared the best, with June coming in second. The third least deadly month was November; that was when we set our clocks back. Judging from the media’s treatment of the loss of daylight, you would expect November, December, and January to be the worst months for pedestrians. January, April, August, and September tied for fourth least deadly. On the other side of this, February and March tied for second most deadly; we set our clocks ahead in March. Tying for the third most deadly months were July and December.
If a reduction in daylight hours were tied to fatal pedestrian crashes, then I would expect this wheel to resemble the waxing and waning daylight hours of the year. It doesn’t. It’s all over the place.
And not to be a total asshole, but it does not start getting darker in October. That happens right after the summer solstice — June 20, 2024 this year, June 21, 2023 the previous. The shift in daylight is mostly gradual, with two larger bumps happening with our clock changing tradition. Despite that, it’s still a relatively minor change — we aren’t going from sunset at 9 PM to sunset at 5 PM. We have had several full months of gradual adjustment to earlier sunsets before the clock change. This is something we know happens every single year, whether we like it or not.
Let’s look at another graph, this one from timeanddate, a website people should visit if they do not believe me that darkness falls upon us more gradually:
This shows the amount of sunlight and darkness throughout 2023.
How are things going in 2024? If you’ve been reading each monthly installment, then you already know, but let’s look at the same pie chart, but for January-July 2024:
Read this the same way, starting with January at 14%, clockwise, and ending with July at 5%. During this period, the most deadly month for pedestrians by far was June. For this part of the year, 27% of pedestrian deaths happened in the month that has the latest sunsets and the most daylight hours.
Here is how that same time period looks for 2023:
To look at this yet another way:
In 2024, there were more pedestrian fatalities in the month with the most daylight than in the two months with least daylight, combined. In 2023, the numbers were different:
Let’s look again at this, using the available data from 2020-2024. The big takeaway from this is that too many pedestrians are being killed in every month.
Perhaps in some communities, everyone scatters to their detached homes in their detached neighborhoods and pulls closed their curtains at 6 PM, thus prompting the sort of “OMG it gets dark so early now” coverage, but here in the real world, lots of folks work second and third shift, are out visiting friends, or as has happened over and over again, find themselves as unintended pedestrians when their cars break down on the highway late at night. We have insufficient street lighting in many places, and that can mean many things from lack of lights to inappropriate types or lights to timers not being set to the correct hours. We have drivers who do not use their headlights. We have drivers who manage to crash into and kill pedestrians when it is a dry, sunny day — that was the case several times in June 2024.
In 2023, this is when fatal pedestrian crashes happened:
Most fatal pedestrian crashes are happening when it is dark, but it should wake people up that 25% of all fatal pedestrian crashes in Connecticut last year happened when it was daytime, and in almost every case the weather was clear and dry. Instead of acting like this is an impossible knot, we can begin by making vetted changes; by adding sidewalks in areas where pedestrians are expected to be, dedicated pedestrian light phases that do not require ridiculously long waits, other Complete Streets infrastructure, and reducing the number of travel lanes, roads become safer for all users at all times of day. Ensuring that there are functioning and adequate street lights in areas where pedestrians are expected to be will reduce fatal crashes from dusk until dawn.
The 6-8:59 PM window that the media tells us to be wary of is not actually the worst three hours in the day. This detail matters. Here’s how it breaks down for last year’s fatal pedestrian crashes:
The 10 PM hour tied the 6 PM one for most fatalities, and the whole 8-11 PM time is especially concerning.
We need to have some real talk about who is most impacted and when.
What time do many retail stores and restaurants close, and when are their workers going home? How many of these are people walking in places with insufficient lighting and sidewalks because that is their option since the boss made them work late — again — and they missed the final bus home? How many of these workers have uniforms or dress codes that require they wear dark colors? Besides how this is hot AF in the summer, wearing dark colors means getting judged by the pedestrian behavior police who probably overlap with those obsessed with whether or not other people have jobs. Stop & Shop, for instance, has black uniforms and employees are often commuting in the dark. We can sit around begging drivers to pay attention, which they don’t, and for pedestrians to wear light colors, which is often an unreasonable ask. Or, we can act as if we care about other humans for real.
How many of these fatal crashes involved someone’s car breaking down in the middle of the night, and then them getting hit when they stepped out to check on the problem? Many of the pedestrians who get killed did not step out the house intending to be pedestrians. More often than most would expect, what happens is someone planning to be nothing but a driver, except in a parking lot, is thrust into the pedestrian role wholly unprepared. Those who aren’t used to being pedestrians might not be used to understanding how invisible people on foot and bike are — at all times of day, regardless of clothing — to those behind a wheel. They might stand in or too close to the road assuming that motorists will see them and just go around. And, the whole time, they’re unlikely to be attired in light and day-glo colors because motorists aren’t bullied into dressing that way.
This fall, let’s not act as if we have not all been slowly inching toward darkness since June; let’s definitely not beg drivers to act better or pedestrians to do whatever unscientific nonsense we are told to do. Instead, let’s shine the spotlight on towns and cities that have known design problems and which have chosen to take no action or remarkably insufficient action.
To recap what preventable pedestrian deaths happened on Connecticut’s roadways in August 2024, we actually have to start with January.
Once again, we begin with writing about a pedestrian death that the news never reported — not the death or even that the crash happened.
At 6:54 AM on January 10, 2024 the driver of a Toyota Highlander SUV struck and killed an 80-year old male in Waterbury.
The driver was going eastbound on West Main Street in Waterbury when they hit the elderly Waterbury resident near Roland Park where there is sidewalk on only one side of the roadway.
It was raining at the time of the crash, and the area was described as dark but lit by street lights. The speed limit is 25 MPH. The nearest painted crosswalk would have been a 0.2 mi walk in west or 0.1 mi walk east, from a location where that side of the street did not have a sidewalk.
This street is technically two lanes, but is overly wide with one of those paint-only medians that do not slow down vehicles.
What else you need to know is that this was not a mere tragic incident. This man’s death was preventable and part of a pattern.
This map indicates where drivers have killed pedestrians and cyclists on West Main Street in Waterbury from 2015 to present.
And here is what the carnage looks like on Waterbury’s East Main Street:
This helps bring us up to present.
AUGUST 10, 2024
WATERBURY
Seven months after that unidentified and unreported pedestrian’s death on West Main Street, a driver killed a female pedestrian on East Main Street. Michelle Trausch, 36, was described by the media as living in Norwich but by her obituary as living in Florida. According to her obituary, “Michelle loved music and loved going to concerts. She loved the beach, cats, dogs and horses. She loved to make everyone laugh.Michelle was passionate about her Faith and her loved ones. Michelle was a kind-hearted individual who loved people and enjoyed making new friends. She always knew how to make the ones around her comfortable and at ease. Michelle had a huge heart.Her sister remembers her as a beautiful soul. Who always had so much passion and love to give. She always wanted to make others smile. She supported others, even through her own trials and tribulations. Michelle always knew all of the best songs, she knew all the words, too. Michelle was a one of a kind person.”
The crash that took her life happened around 10, 10:21, 10:22, or 10:30 PM — pick you favorite news station’s time on this — on August 10, 2024.
Currently, news reports say Michelle was found in the roadway by 603 East Main Street. As a reminder: where a person is found and where they were hit are not necessarily the same location. She later died at the hospital.
The block where this happened is by an entrance to the mall, Brass Mill Center. At that intersection, where there are marked crosswalks, there is no pedestrian light. They have fake beg buttons that pedestrians can push so that drivers receive a green light. Drivers are allowed to make right turns on red at that intersection.
The other nearby intersection does not have a marked crosswalk on East Main Street, though it is a legal, unmarked crosswalk.
If this all sounds familiar to you, it’s because I wrote about another nearby back entrance to the mall when a driver killed an unidentified male pedestrian in May. That crash also happened on a Saturday night and was about 0.2 mi from where the unidentified female was killed in August.
Here, the posted speed limit is 25 MPH. A sign declaring a speed limit does not seem to have made any difference.
Here is one hard truth: plans with long timelines do not mean a thing, especially when there are no updates, and especially when what we do hear about is another I-84 widening scheme.
The West Main Street Waterbury project study which involves/involved Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, the City of Waterbury, and the CT Department of Transportation had its final meeting in October 2021. Oh, they talked a good game about Complete Streets and eliminating car-centric hazards on this archaic 1.2 miles of West Main Street. They urged people to follow the project on Facebook for updates. The last update on their social media was July 2021. This does not do much for the image of the COGs as loving a good study that they do nothing with, nor for the City of Waterbury or CT DOT as having no urgency about improving pedestrian safety.
Elsewhere, I located the long timeline to which I was referring to earlier. The West Main Street Improvements only go out to bid in Fall 2025.
How is there an entire four year gap between completion of a study and the beginning phase for finding workers? The construction phase is described as Spring 2027 through Fall 2028.
Knowing how many pedestrians and cyclists get killed on West and East Main Street in Waterbury, you would think there would have been more drive to get this going. How many more will die waiting for construction to begin? In the meantime, the City of Waterbury, at any point, could have made use of quick builds. Not doing this has been a choice.
As for East Main Street, where six of those ten fatalities have occurred, if there are any plans to improve pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure, I have not heard of them.
We have to talk about the stupidity of allowing and requiring studies that delay taking action. Currently, there is a nebulous Waterbury Residential Street Traffic Calming Study. Would East Main Street be included? Guessing not since it is not strictly residential.
They already have the data. I have it. You have it. Anyone with access to the news and the UConn Crash Data Repository has the information needed to make changes. You look for where there are fatalities and serious injuries, and ignore all other types of crashes. You look at the road design. This study could truly take under one week if anyone at the different levels of decision-making wanted to prioritize action. You don’t have to ask residents for how they feel.
The professionals know that these requirements are ridiculous. How could our lives be different if engineers, planners, mayors, city council members, and those approving funds to pay for it all admitted that gravity does not work in some special different way in their territory?
NEXT
Take Action!
Live, work, or spend time in Waterbury?
Ask Waterbury’s decision-makers where they are. Until Waterbury manages to make East Main and West Main Streets safe, comfortable, and efficient for pedestrians and cyclists, contact these folks:
Waterbury’s Chief of Staff:
jgeary@waterburyct.org
Waterbury’s City Engineer:
rcavanaugh@waterburyct.org
Waterbury’s Acting Supervisor of Streets:
EDelPriore@wateburyct.org
Waterbury’s DPW Director:
dsimpson@waterburyct.org
AUGUST 22, 2024
KILLINGLY
At 8:16 PM — dark, but not terribly late in the evening — 39-year old Killingly resident William Perry was crossing Route 6 in the marked crosswalk. While much of this part of the state is sparsely populated, there are a few areas where it is obvious a larger number of people live there, and where there are other signs that suggest people should be expected to be found walking around. The Quinebaug River Trail is one hint. The homes visible from Route 6 is another. Then, there are the signs indicating a nearby art center and community college. Anyone passing through, even on their first or only drive here, could take note of these signs that suggest drivers should be more alert and slow down.
One didn’t. The driver of a 2009 Subaru Impreza 2.5 collided with William while he was in the marked crosswalk at Maple Street.
Why didn’t paint provide William with magical protection? Look at the Google Maps screenshot above showing an aerial view of the intersection and tell me what you see.
Soon after the collision — after William had died but before any crash reports were submitted — the news reports were quick to say that the victim did not have the walk signal, and they said this with so much conviction despite the investigation being ongoing, and without providing anything to substantiate that claim. “According to police” is not good enough. Do we know this because of surveillance cameras in the area? Because three unconnected witnesses made this statement? Because the driver said so?
Whatever is finally determined — if ever — should be considered only within the larger context, and that is how this and many other intersections in our state function: pedestrians may legally, but never functionally, have the right-of-way.
Let’s look at the other nearest intersection that William could have used (see above).
It’s a similar model.
Here, Route 6 intersects on one side with Route 12 and on the other with the Quinebaug River Trail. I have a theory about large green signs triggering motorists to drive faster — green suggests ‘go’ — and wonder how differently drivers would behave around on/off ramps if those signs with red or a darker color instead. Either way, we know that driver behavior around highway ramps is even more erratic than usual. There’s a higher level of panic about being in the “wrong” lane. Here on Route 6, motorists are already traveling at high speeds before being introduced to the Route 12 ramp. Where I would not want to be exiting a walking/cycling path is directly by a highway entrance. It does not matter that what looks like an interstate shrinks from six lanes at the intersection to two — in this location, the message sent is “drive fast.”
Those crossing on foot, even if/when the pedestrian light signal is operating, do not functionally have the right of way because drivers are allowed to turn right when their light is red. It’s true at the nearby intersection that William did not use and the one at Main Street that he did.
The speed limit in the intersection is 40 MPH. Or 35. Or 45. Or something else. There have been numerous collisions at these intersections, yet police cannot seem to agree on what the speed limit is in their crash reports. Nearby posted signs say that the speed limit for those traveling westbound is 40 MPH. The speed limit noted in the crash report for William’s death was recorded as 30 MPH.
The report does not indicate why the motorist did not avoid hitting the pedestrian, which seems like something a driver who is paying attention and traveling no faster than 30 MPH should be able to do. It was dry and while dark, the crash report claims that there were working street lights, which are evident in the Google Maps screenshots.
In 2015, a driver was killed at this intersection in a one-car crash when the driver of a 2006 Subaru Impreza took a turn too fast while she was possibly distracted by an electronic device. Since 2015, there were three non-fatal collisions here involving one pedestrian and two cyclists.
This is the perfect time to interrogate the wisdom of excessive travel lanes and deadly speed limits in this location.
Contact the DOT to demand they reconfigure Route 6 in populated areas: 203-238-6240
Contact Killingly’s Director of Highway operations to do the same: 860-779-5385
AUGUST 29, 2024
GRISWOLD
The third fatal pedestrian crash in August 2024 happened about sixteen miles south of there on Route 12 in Griswold
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This happened at 3:44 PM on a clear, dry day; it is 0.3 mi from where a pedestrian was killed on Griswold’s Route 12 in September 2023. That’s not an insignificant detail. It’s a moment to ask why this area of Route 12, where one is likely to find pedestrians due to its downtown character, has not adequately protected people on foot from reckless drivers. Like that stretch of Route 6 in Killingly, this part of Route 12 obviously moves through a populated area, with homes, businesses, restaurants, library, and town hall nearby. The posted speed limit is 25 MPH, but that didn’t make a difference last week or last year.
Last Thursday afternoon, the 36-year old driver of a 2017 BMW X5 SUV was traveling north on Route 12 when he crossed into the southbound lane. It is not yet clear in which order he ran into what, but this motorist struck two parked vehicles, a Department of Transportation street sign, and went onto the sidewalk hitting Bernice LaRochelle, 78 of Lisbon. He also crashed into the U.S. Post Office, breaking two windows. There was an elderly woman in one of those parked cars; fortunately, she was not injured. Bernice, however, was pronounced dead on the scene.
The driver was a longtime resident of Norwich; because his hometown borders Griswold, it’s reasonable to assume he was familiar with Route 12, including where population centers were.
The driver was someone who less than six years earlier had been arrested after participating in a police chase from East Hartford to Wethersfield when he was wanted for being connected to a robbery in Waterford. He engaged in that chase with a juvenile cousin in his vehicle. Stop sticks were deployed. He’s had other arrests over the years.
In September 2023, 0.3 mi away on Route 12, a different 30-something Norwich man killed a pedestrian who was crossing the road for dinner at a pizza restaurant. That motorist had an arson charge in 2006.
People doing completely normal things like grabbing dinner or walking on a sidewalk by the post office should not be getting killed by reckless drivers. Funding more education campaigns is not the way to solve this problem. Those who have shown no regard for others (see: arson, robbery, threatening, domestic disturbance, risk of injury, etc.) are not going to drive safely because they have been begged to slow down. We need to be smarter than this. We need to be less obsessed with the criminal justice system and much more obsessed with preventing tragedies that are by-and-large preventable.
Contact the DOT to demand they add meaningful Complete Streets infrastructure in populated areas of Route 12 in Griswold: 203-238-6240. Additionally, drop the Town of Griswold a note about how they could do right by those who would like to use Route 12 without risking death.
As of publication, drivers have killed at least 47 pedestrians/cyclists in Connecticut, so far, in 2024; we are only in week 36 of the year. This is not just the way things are. Humans manufactured deadly machinery and set it loose, with few restrictions, on streets designed to allow high speeds. Humans have an obligation to fix this known mistake. Honor the memory of the dead by acting to prevent future avoidable deaths. Tell your legislators that we need safer designed roads, vehicles with speed limiters, and alcohol detection technology as the default in all vehicles.