A few hundred people gathered in New Britain’s postage stamp Central Park on a Tuesday night in December as thick, fluffy snowflakes swirled around. Children played in an inflatable snow globe. Santa and Mrs. Claus made an appearance. The countdown began for the annual tree lighting. It looked like a scene ripped from a Hallmark movie, except for one important detail.
Justice for Katherine protestors gathered near the tree, holding signs and chanting.
Katherine Colon was the 41-year old woman killed on September 21, 2023 when a motorist struck her as she crossed State Route 555, also known as West Main Street, in New Britain. Moments before the crash, the driver was traveling more than twice the legal speed limit. The driver’s speed was calculated as being 51.7 MPH to 60.0 MPH, more specifically, and at time of impact with the pedestrian, 48 MPH. The motorist hit Katherine while going 48 MPH in a 25 MPH zone.
The motorist is a police officer who was responding to a non-violent crime; he was not using his siren or flashing lights.
The protestors have clear demands: putting the officer on desk duty is not good enough, to them. They want him fired and for there to be motor vehicle homicide charges.
It is hard to stomach how few consequences the motorist has received considering that his choices that night resulted in someone’s death; maybe taking away someone’s job and freedom will help the family heal, but I doubt it.
There should be consequences, but more importantly, there should be choices made going forward that better protect those walking on streets in New Britain.
The driver, as far as we know, maintains his drivers’ license. A reasonable consequence after anyone seriously injures or kills a pedestrian is having their license revoked. No exceptions. After a lengthy period of driving abstinence, sobriety (if applicable), and community service, earning back the privilege of driving could be discussed. Restore their relationship with themselves and those around them before letting drivers with a record get back behind the wheel. Those who are more respectful of themselves and their community would act like it, no?
As for New Britain specifically, this is a city that has been forward-thinking in a lot of ways. They are receptive to improving their streets, which is always easier to do when those streets are local rather than State-managed roads. Still, if we care about preventing others’ suffering, we ought to be demanding quicker fixes to places like State Route 555/West Main Street so that it is nearly impossible to go double the legal speed. The reality is that even if the motorist who killed Katherine loses his job and license, a road allowed to remain broken is still a threat to public safety; other drivers can still easily speed here — and civilians do not have sirens and flashing lights.
If you spend time reading all the media coverage of preventable pedestrian deaths, you quickly perceive the pattern of reporters parroting police. Nearly all of this coverage contains an assignment of explicit or tacit blame to either the motorist or the deceased victim who does not get to tell their side of the story. The framing is that there are two sides — driver versus pedestrian — and it is a patently false framing.
Every time we talk about traffic violence, we have a choice about the language we use. When we choose to exclusively focus on the driver’s actions before or after the collision, we are voting to live within a “law and order” framework. That exists within a culture of fear. It is one that states that humans will not behave correctly unless threatened with consequences; you would think that the United States’ high incarceration rate (even when you subtract out those imprisoned for so-called non-violent crimes) would speak for itself: mass incarceration does not reduce the crime rate. While fixating on the driver’s actions might feel like seeking justice, it’s a flimsy form of legal revenge that does nothing to prevent future harm caused by him or others with access to the same weapon.
This approach reinforces the lie that if drivers follow all the rules (that they have not been fully tested on since they received their license perhaps decades earlier) then they won’t hit anyone (but if they do, they can be assured a mere slap on the wrist if they were lousy sober drivers who simply remain on the scene, which of course the media will be glad to point out so that we all know if they were Good or Bad).
When we talk about traffic violence, if we exclusively focus on the actions of the pedestrian/cyclist, we are voting on a world in which no solutions are sought. This approach reinforces the lie that if pedestrians and cyclists use the roads (that were often redesigned to ensure minimal inconvenience to those in vehicles while treating everyone’s safety as an afterthought) according to the rules (created by those who are rarely in the pedestrian/cyclist role, if ever) and according to the unwritten rules (not at night, not while disabled, not while old, not while impaired, not when motorists are too self-absorbed to pay attention), and while donning safety drag (wearing hi-vis clothing, draped in reflectors, carrying flashlights even in population centers, wearing flashing lights), then they will have earned the right to remain safe, and subsequently will be safe.
All we need to do to know the truth about this safety theater is to look at how many crashes and near misses involve school buses: a large vehicle painted bright yellow that has stop sign arms, lights on the stop signs, yellow and red flashing lights, strobe lights, and large penalties for those who drive dangerously around them. Even if several of those bus safety features have failed — a light is out or the stop sign arm is only partially extended — it’s still going to be a bright yellow school bus. All of that, and drivers still manage to hit buses or people walking/to from them. Exclusively focusing on what a victim was wearing is a vote for remaining ignorant about what prevents collisions.
Let’s be real: had Katherine Colon been lit up like a disco and using the marked crosswalk early that September morning, it’s unlikely her outcome would have been much different considering the speed at which the driver who killed her was traveling, and the size of the vehicle. In the exclusive focus on driver or victim responsibility, we foolishly ignore the deadly decisions made through policy, such as the one permitting an urban police force to use SUVs rather than sedans. SUVs take longer than sedans to stop; SUVs strike pedestrians at higher locations on the body than do sedans, making them more deadly.
The smearing of Katherine’s reputation has been enabled by those who also don’t understand human response, perhaps because they’ve seen too many action movies and played too many video games. In real life, time does not freeze while we react. We would all like to believe we could think fast, but all we need to do is think about how we have seen animals in the road react: some decisively bound out of the way, others dart in one direction and then another while confused about the best course of action, and others freeze.
One media account of the collision included these contradictions. Read it twice if you must:
Who would like to explain how someone can appear “suddenly” and “out of nowhere” when they were shown on camera as “not taking the shortest path across the road” and walking “slowly.” Which is it?
Five years before Katherine Colon was hit in New Britain, Stefanie Marco Lantz — a popular local artist — was struck and seriously injured while using the marked crosswalk at Trout Brook and Farmington in West Hartford. This happened in the daytime when the pedestrian walk sign was on. Other pedestrians were using the intersection. As she has told reporters, “When we got about halfway across … I look down the road, because I’m very conscious. This guy is flying down the road and I’m like how in the world is he going to stop at that red light because he’s coming in really fast. Everything happened super fast. […] There’s not even enough time to jump out of the way.”
When the exclusive focus is on what the pedestrian could have physically done, we vote for living in a fictional superhero world in which people can dodge bullets, run atop speeding trains, and backflip our way to safety.
The exclusive focus on either driver and/or pedestrian/victim does something else: it keeps our roads unsafe.
This is done by exonerating those who make their deadly decisions while behind a desk rather than the wheel.
When the decision was made to put New Britain’s police in SUVs rather than sedans, humans voted against public safety. When the choice was made to not create well-lit, well-marked crossings on a road that is used by those reaching a museum, library, and park, those decision-makers voted against public safety. When decision-makers chose to let much of State Route 555 become an overly wide speedway, they voted against public safety. It has been over a year since Katherine Colon’s preventable death and nothing has been done to improve the conditions of State Route 555 — that too is a vote against public safety.
Not one decision a person makes today can bring Katherine — or any other road violence victims — back to life, but they can prevent future victims by addressing policy and design. This is how they can prevent other families from experiencing this pain. And selfishly, doing the right thing means they can prevent their photo ops from being disrupted by protestors.
Tree Lighting a Fire
A few hundred people gathered in New Britain’s postage stamp Central Park on a Tuesday night in December as thick, fluffy snowflakes swirled around. Children played in an inflatable snow globe. Santa and Mrs. Claus made an appearance. The countdown began for the annual tree lighting. It looked like a scene ripped from a Hallmark movie, except for one important detail.
Justice for Katherine protestors gathered near the tree, holding signs and chanting.
Katherine Colon was the 41-year old woman killed on September 21, 2023 when a motorist struck her as she crossed State Route 555, also known as West Main Street, in New Britain. Moments before the crash, the driver was traveling more than twice the legal speed limit. The driver’s speed was calculated as being 51.7 MPH to 60.0 MPH, more specifically, and at time of impact with the pedestrian, 48 MPH. The motorist hit Katherine while going 48 MPH in a 25 MPH zone.
The motorist is a police officer who was responding to a non-violent crime; he was not using his siren or flashing lights.
The protestors have clear demands: putting the officer on desk duty is not good enough, to them. They want him fired and for there to be motor vehicle homicide charges.
It is hard to stomach how few consequences the motorist has received considering that his choices that night resulted in someone’s death; maybe taking away someone’s job and freedom will help the family heal, but I doubt it.
There should be consequences, but more importantly, there should be choices made going forward that better protect those walking on streets in New Britain.
The driver, as far as we know, maintains his drivers’ license. A reasonable consequence after anyone seriously injures or kills a pedestrian is having their license revoked. No exceptions. After a lengthy period of driving abstinence, sobriety (if applicable), and community service, earning back the privilege of driving could be discussed. Restore their relationship with themselves and those around them before letting drivers with a record get back behind the wheel. Those who are more respectful of themselves and their community would act like it, no?
As for New Britain specifically, this is a city that has been forward-thinking in a lot of ways. They are receptive to improving their streets, which is always easier to do when those streets are local rather than State-managed roads. Still, if we care about preventing others’ suffering, we ought to be demanding quicker fixes to places like State Route 555/West Main Street so that it is nearly impossible to go double the legal speed. The reality is that even if the motorist who killed Katherine loses his job and license, a road allowed to remain broken is still a threat to public safety; other drivers can still easily speed here — and civilians do not have sirens and flashing lights.
If you spend time reading all the media coverage of preventable pedestrian deaths, you quickly perceive the pattern of reporters parroting police. Nearly all of this coverage contains an assignment of explicit or tacit blame to either the motorist or the deceased victim who does not get to tell their side of the story. The framing is that there are two sides — driver versus pedestrian — and it is a patently false framing.
Every time we talk about traffic violence, we have a choice about the language we use. When we choose to exclusively focus on the driver’s actions before or after the collision, we are voting to live within a “law and order” framework. That exists within a culture of fear. It is one that states that humans will not behave correctly unless threatened with consequences; you would think that the United States’ high incarceration rate (even when you subtract out those imprisoned for so-called non-violent crimes) would speak for itself: mass incarceration does not reduce the crime rate. While fixating on the driver’s actions might feel like seeking justice, it’s a flimsy form of legal revenge that does nothing to prevent future harm caused by him or others with access to the same weapon.
This approach reinforces the lie that if drivers follow all the rules (that they have not been fully tested on since they received their license perhaps decades earlier) then they won’t hit anyone (but if they do, they can be assured a mere slap on the wrist if they were lousy sober drivers who simply remain on the scene, which of course the media will be glad to point out so that we all know if they were Good or Bad).
When we talk about traffic violence, if we exclusively focus on the actions of the pedestrian/cyclist, we are voting on a world in which no solutions are sought. This approach reinforces the lie that if pedestrians and cyclists use the roads (that were often redesigned to ensure minimal inconvenience to those in vehicles while treating everyone’s safety as an afterthought) according to the rules (created by those who are rarely in the pedestrian/cyclist role, if ever) and according to the unwritten rules (not at night, not while disabled, not while old, not while impaired, not when motorists are too self-absorbed to pay attention), and while donning safety drag (wearing hi-vis clothing, draped in reflectors, carrying flashlights even in population centers, wearing flashing lights), then they will have earned the right to remain safe, and subsequently will be safe.
All we need to do to know the truth about this safety theater is to look at how many crashes and near misses involve school buses: a large vehicle painted bright yellow that has stop sign arms, lights on the stop signs, yellow and red flashing lights, strobe lights, and large penalties for those who drive dangerously around them. Even if several of those bus safety features have failed — a light is out or the stop sign arm is only partially extended — it’s still going to be a bright yellow school bus. All of that, and drivers still manage to hit buses or people walking/to from them. Exclusively focusing on what a victim was wearing is a vote for remaining ignorant about what prevents collisions.
Let’s be real: had Katherine Colon been lit up like a disco and using the marked crosswalk early that September morning, it’s unlikely her outcome would have been much different considering the speed at which the driver who killed her was traveling, and the size of the vehicle. In the exclusive focus on driver or victim responsibility, we foolishly ignore the deadly decisions made through policy, such as the one permitting an urban police force to use SUVs rather than sedans. SUVs take longer than sedans to stop; SUVs strike pedestrians at higher locations on the body than do sedans, making them more deadly.
The smearing of Katherine’s reputation has been enabled by those who also don’t understand human response, perhaps because they’ve seen too many action movies and played too many video games. In real life, time does not freeze while we react. We would all like to believe we could think fast, but all we need to do is think about how we have seen animals in the road react: some decisively bound out of the way, others dart in one direction and then another while confused about the best course of action, and others freeze.
One media account of the collision included these contradictions. Read it twice if you must:
Who would like to explain how someone can appear “suddenly” and “out of nowhere” when they were shown on camera as “not taking the shortest path across the road” and walking “slowly.” Which is it?
Five years before Katherine Colon was hit in New Britain, Stefanie Marco Lantz — a popular local artist — was struck and seriously injured while using the marked crosswalk at Trout Brook and Farmington in West Hartford. This happened in the daytime when the pedestrian walk sign was on. Other pedestrians were using the intersection. As she has told reporters, “When we got about halfway across … I look down the road, because I’m very conscious. This guy is flying down the road and I’m like how in the world is he going to stop at that red light because he’s coming in really fast. Everything happened super fast. […] There’s not even enough time to jump out of the way.”
When the exclusive focus is on what the pedestrian could have physically done, we vote for living in a fictional superhero world in which people can dodge bullets, run atop speeding trains, and backflip our way to safety.
The exclusive focus on either driver and/or pedestrian/victim does something else: it keeps our roads unsafe.
This is done by exonerating those who make their deadly decisions while behind a desk rather than the wheel.
When the decision was made to put New Britain’s police in SUVs rather than sedans, humans voted against public safety. When the choice was made to not create well-lit, well-marked crossings on a road that is used by those reaching a museum, library, and park, those decision-makers voted against public safety. When decision-makers chose to let much of State Route 555 become an overly wide speedway, they voted against public safety. It has been over a year since Katherine Colon’s preventable death and nothing has been done to improve the conditions of State Route 555 — that too is a vote against public safety.
Not one decision a person makes today can bring Katherine — or any other road violence victims — back to life, but they can prevent future victims by addressing policy and design. This is how they can prevent other families from experiencing this pain. And selfishly, doing the right thing means they can prevent their photo ops from being disrupted by protestors.
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About People
Scenes from the Sidewalk: Installment Nineteen