Safe Streets Connecticut: Look Back at 2024

After sending 6,100 people to the emergency room for treatment between 1978 and 1986, and causing the deaths of three children, the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned the sale of metal lawn darts in the United States in 1988. 

What got these dangerous toys off store shelves wasn’t the CPSC taking initiative. It took lobbying. The father of one of those three dead children was instrumental in this, delivering what the Los Angeles Times called “20 minutes of searing testimony to a House of Representatives subcommittee.” In less than two years after his daughter’s death, lawn darts were banned from sale. 

In 2022 alone, motor vehicle crashes were responsible for robbing 42,514 people of their lives in the United States. Of those, 7,522 were pedestrians and 1,084 cyclists. In 2021, 43,230 people died due to motor vehicle crashes, with 7,470 of them being pedestrians and 971 as cyclists. 

The question often posed by reporters: are things getting better or worse? 

That’s the wrong question. 

Metal lawn darts were outright banned from being sold after just three deaths in the United States. But, as Ben Goldfarb puts it, “the allure of the car is so strong that it has persuaded Americans to treat forty thousand human lives as expendable each year.” 

In December 2024, several people filed a lawsuit over a crash responsible for killing one of those 42,514 people in 2022. The parties suing had been injured in this five-vehicle wreck. Based on news reports and information in the CT Crash Data Repository, three drivers were racing when they swiped each other; one ended up crossing the centerline and hitting a non-racing vehicle head-on. One of the racing drivers died at the hospital. Essentially, those suing are claiming that both the City of New Haven and several area businesses knew about street racing but had not done enough to discourage it. Nothing has been said regarding if all those suing received their injuries while in non-racing vehicles, or if any had been inside those involved in the street racing. 

Here is the crash diagram for what went down in October 2022: 

That street racing has happened on New Haven’s Sargent Drive has been no secret — even to those who do not live near New Haven nor partake in motorized pissing contests.

It’s been one of the least pleasant roads to walk on in the city, with four lanes of fast-moving traffic during regular hours. In August 2022 the roadway looked like this: 

According to the Connecticut Crash Data Repository, all five drivers involved in that 2:18 AM crash were issued a verbal warning, including the one who died — decide for yourself, I guess, if that was a clerical error or what actually happened. Since then, the two surviving racing drivers have been arrested.  

Following this fatal crash but before the filing of this lawsuit, Sargent Drive was amended to look like this: 

New Haven is one of the few Connecticut municipalities where there is a reasonable level of responsiveness from those tasked with maintaining its roadways. The racing was happening here most likely because Long Wharf Drive was previously made less inviting for it. 

This is how the closest non-highway parallel street to Sargent looked in 2016: 

Then, again in 2017: 

And then again, in 2020 with a raised crosswalk: 

Many things can be true at once. New Haven is reasonably responsive. New Haven long neglected to address Sargent Drive, even after it had proven results with correcting the problems of Long Wharf Drive. Adding a speed hump to Sargent Drive is a more significant change than putting out “slow down” signs or upping police presence for a few days following a crash. Lawsuits don’t bring back the dead or un-injure people. Lawsuits can motivate people to do the right thing, even if not for the right reasons. Asserting pressure on decision-makers gets results. 

After making claims that they could not do anything during winter, West Hartford’s decision-makers have apparently adjusted their belief system in a few short weeks, with the announcement that they would be revising five crosswalks beginning this winter. One of these necessary changes will be the addition of ped heads at Boulevard and South Quaker. Currently, there are faux pedestrian beg buttons, the kind that tell people to push in order to give motorists a green light; that’s right — at the moment, pedestrians never really have the right-of-way as most drivers would see it, even though this intersection is a short walk from Whiting Lane Elementary School and Kingswood Oxford, as well as being in a residential neighborhood. The addition will not be as grand as a full stop for all traffic, but will provide a leading pedestrian interval that gives those outside of vehicles a head start. 

Don’t think for a second that this stuff simply happens without pressure. 

In 2024, at least 64 pedestrians/cyclists were needlessly killed in Connecticut. Forty of those fatalities occurred on state routes or interstates. To put it another way, that’s one landlord or management company responsible for the road conditions in 62.5% of all fatal pedestrian/cyclist crashes last year. 

Metal lawn darts were banned after three deaths over several years.  
Connecticut had 64 pedestrian and cyclist deaths last year alone. 

How many lawsuits and minutes of searing testimony are we prepared to launch in order to stop this carnage? 

Although I wrote about each of these preventable losses over the last year, it may be helpful to swallow this hard pill at once. Here are the names, when known, for the lives of pedestrians and cyclists that did not need to be lost in Connecticut during 2024: 

Those are 64 people who were missed at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Friday night dinners, birthday parties; 64 people whose deaths, by and large, could have been prevented. 

It’s incorrect to say that nobody cares about the carnage.

People absolutely care, from those who quietly message me to the folks who show up at vigils to those who chat about traffic violence on social media. 

These discussions were routine on Twitter and are now on Bluesky. Participating in them neither requires you to leave your house nor attend hours-long meetings in a town hall where no effort was made to even provide snacks for attendees. These chats can be educational for those who are interested but don’t have a strong background in the subject. You’re going to get more nuanced ideas than the desperate (and generally useless) “solutions” people typically gravitate toward like more police (expensive and extremely limited in results), more education (vague, expensive, and knowing better does not actually lead to people doing better . . . and while stripping every single person of their license and making them start over would probably be effective under a robust system driven by love, we know to put energy elsewhere), more signs (only effective if drivers are paying attention and interested in respecting the signs), more hi-vis clothing (only effective if drivers are paying attention and interested in respecting those wearing it), more helmets (these don’t actually prevent crashes and do not prevent all serious and fatal injuries — why not pour that charisma into preventing the harm from happening instead?). 

One strand of a conversation can look like this: 

I won’t get into all of that, but vehicle design is huge problem. It’s obvious that being hit by a semi at 25 MPH is going to be less survivable than being hit by a compact car at the same speed. Most pedestrians aren’t being killed by professional tractor trailer drivers — they have better training, for starters, but also these vehicles aren’t what people are driving to pick up a gallon of milk at the store. Increasingly over the last few decades, people have chosen to buy bigger vehicles than necessary for the task, first going wild for SUVs (luxury minivans, essentially), and now opting in to oversized pickup trucks. No special training or license is needed to drive either the SUV or oversized pickup despite the heavier weight and blindspots. 

As this poster also indicates, our attention has been on making vehicles seem safer to those inside them, without taking into consideration the damage they do to others. It’s a lot of why you see people buy into the giant SUV con — they’ve ingested the mindset of “family first,” not extending their desire for safety to the families in other vehicles or outside of vehicles. And, more striking, because of the way vehicles are marketed, they in actuality aren’t even putting their own kids first considering how dangerous these are for kids outside of vehicles. There are about 40 hot car deaths nationwide each year, and 626 child pedestrian deaths. One of these is an easy fix: don’t leave children in cars. The other, we still treat as if it were the 1960s instead of acknowledging what is involved in modern day preventable fatalities. Dr. Mickey Edwards says that “children are eight times more likely to die when struck by an SUV compared to those struck by a passenger car.” Be a trendsetter in your social groups and opt for a smaller-sized vehicle for the family. 

Part of what must happen is getting the message through to the average motor vehicle owner and consumer who is not peeling away the layers of claims made by the automotive industry. One suggestion for how to do that, which comes up a lot, is simply mirroring what we have seen done with cigarettes and beer: 

Tell consumers loudly and clearly the risks associated with the vehicle. Those not dissuaded by those warnings at least won’t be able to claim in court that they were uninformed of the dangers. 

Conversations are ongoing about actual effective ways to make significant improvements; after the intentional killings of pedestrians in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, it’s possible that some of these discussions will hit and remain in the mainstream. It’s been widely reported that the failing bollards on Bourbon Street had been removed before the intentional killing spree. Police vehicles were used as barricades, but anyone who has ever seen this in action anywhere knows how easy it is to get around them. A local example: the use of police vehicles as barricades for parades and events like DominGO! in Hartford. After watching motorists skirt the police vehicles and enter the space allegedly for pedestrians during DominGO!, I recognized that it would be unethical for me to promote this event in any way . . . in case anyone wondered why I kept that off the calendar on this site.

If police cars or bicycle rack-style barricades or wooden sawhorses are not the answer, what works better? Tara Goddard is one person weighing in on this: 

Many of those who do indeed care about reducing traffic violence, and who are informed, have been pushing for approaches that mingle infrastructure changes with vehicle design changes with then smaller amounts of all the other stuff that tends to dominate mainstream chats like lowering speed limits and pushing for increased ever-vague public education.  

Yes, and. 

Lowering the posted speed limit is a fine step, yes, if it is done alongside other changes. 

TAKE ACTION 

Each month, I provide information to help people nag those with power until they make life-affirming choices, whether that looks like signing a document that’s been sitting on their desk for months, completing grant applications on time, hiring more progressive engineers, or installing needed infrastructure despite knowing a few cranky drivers will gripe. This type of activism is important, but most powerful when coming from those who would be regarded as constituents — residents of the town in question or frequent/regular users of that road. 

If you care about other people at all, there are actions that you can take regardless of how pedestrians and cyclists are prioritized in your hometown. I suggest starting with the one that checks most of these boxes for you: is necessary work, uses your skills, and is something you care about doing. After doing that one thing, pick another. 

• Creative And/Or Direct Action 

It’s not uncommon for people to display ghost bikes or other politically-infused memorials at fatal crash sites. (Symbols like bicycles and sneakers are more appropriate than crosses; not all victims are Christians and crosses are not actually viewed as positive, welcome, or even neutral by all who are not Christian) Some hold vigils. I’ve heard that some advocates are skittish about openly political actions at crash locations for a number of reasons, but one that has come up a lot has been the claim that they want to be sensitive to the victim’s family. To this, I would simply say that we all have a right to grieve losses in our communities, and that nobody else has a right to tell you how to grieve. Those closer to the victim can opt to not attend; that should be respected. They might decide to become involved later. It’s also fine if they don’t.

When dealing with politicians who don’t think they need to be responsive to cyclists, consider organizing bike rides to the polls and taking lots of photos that you send to those elected officials. Post on social media. Tag them. Send to local media. This does not even have to be during a year that the stick-in-the-mud is up for re-election. The point is to show that cyclists, pedestrians, and bus riders vote. 

In Portland, Oregon in 2023 community activists took action that could have led to arrest but instead led to the Portland Bureau of Transportation doing what they should have in the first place.  Frustrated by what they saw as an inadequately protected bike lane, activists added concrete blocks which were removed by the city a few days later; Portland BOT installed their own concrete barriers shortly after.  Within a year, Portland announced they would be making more upgrades, systematically replacing plastic flex posts with harder bollards. Back in 2013, activists in Seattle created a flexpost-protected bike lane on Cherry Street under I-5. The City apologetically removed their work; however, you can see what happened next by opening up Google Maps. A few months later, Seattle announced that it would be making improvements in the same location and re-installed flexposts. You don’t have to look to the Pacific Northwest for guidance. In Hartford, a downtown resident (or residents) added a centerline yield sign to a mid-block crosswalk. It stayed. Years later, the City replaced the worn sign with something more official, and then more recently, hi-vis pedestrian signs were added on posts at sidewalk’s edge. Legally, I cannot suggest you go out and commit crimes that shouldn’t be crimes, but there’s a lot of room on the spectrum between spending your own money on the kind of sign that could legitimately and easily be found in exactly the location placed (so much so that few people knew it was not official) and going rogue with the concrete. If all of this makes you squeamish, you don’t need to comment about it . . . just move on to something else you can handle. Is there anything you can place on your own property that aids a situation without breaking the law? Then do that. If you are a business owner, for instance, does your driveway or parking lot include speed humps or speed bumps? Are there bollards between the parking lot and your storefront to prevent someone from driving inside? Three or four steel bollards are going to cost less than replacing several windows, a front wall, destroyed furnishings, and whatever is lost because business had to be closed for repairs. 

• Searing Testimony 

Hold politicians and political appointees accountable. This can look like speaking to a room of legislators. It can mean phone calls. It can be emails. It can be several pages of single-spaced writing with photographs included. How you choose to balance emotion and logic is up to you, but above all else, make it incredibly clear what you are asking from politicians. You’re probably familiar with SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. When making your demands — not requests, my loves, demands — use as much of that criteria as possible. Politicians need to be told what specifically you want as an outcome and when you want it. “Now” and “today” are open to interpretation. Give due dates when possible.  By June 30, 2025, we want the bike lane on Boulevard to be consistently protected by flexposts or bollards, and before and after installation we expect vehicles parked in that bike lane to be ticketed. 

Civic engagement means more than just voting and showing up for jury duty. It includes questioning government policies and advocating for the common good. Advocating for safer vehicle design and safer infrastructure is not even inherently radical. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last September proposed a new rule dealing with vehicle safety standards. Add your voice to the mix and say why you want these changes. 

• Lawsuits 

Is there evidence that a municipality and/or State of Connecticut DOT knew that a road had a history of crashes that happened in part because of the street’s design? Is there evidence that a town was told they needed to upgrade their street lighting but failed to take action? Were there no sidewalks on a state route near several big box discount stores, requiring employees and customers to walk directly next to speeding traffic? What is the outcome you want from a lawsuit? Winning, yeah, but why? To get a municipality to become more responsive because it’s motivating for them to not be tied up in court? To hit them in the bank account so that it’s possibly less expensive for them to do the right thing in the first place? If the motivation is simply personal restitution, I don’t have much to say about that, but if the aim is to change behavior of decision-makers for the benefit of the public, then get to it. 

• Boards and Commissions  

I do not recommend everyone join boards and commissions, and will actively urge most people not to do this. If you have low tolerance for bullshit, these groups are likely not the place for you. Put your skills and talents to work elsewhere. Be aware that oftentimes the quickest way to shut someone up is to place them on a commission. Keep them bogged down with points of process. Suddenly, outspoken advocates who were making a difference have been muted and made less of a nuisance to the decision-makers. Boards and commissions can give the appearance of action when nothing is truly happening, and lots of times, municipalities have these features to check off a requirement. What I mean is that a town might pretend to be making strides towards Vision Zero goals by claiming creation of a commission, even though they ignore 9 out of 10 of that commission’s recommendations. 

With that said, this kind of service lights some people up and there is a specific personality who can make a difference in this setting. If you can find a healthy board or commission, congrats! Many towns/cities have some version of a Safe Streets Committee or Vision Zero Taskforce. See what already exists and try to ascertain if this group has any actual power. If the answer is yes, have fun!

• Find Your People

If the answer is no, see if there are advocacy groups (separate from government) in your area. Anything on the block level? Neighborhood level? Those might be the most gratifying and easiest to work with because you have a limited geography and others involved are most likely to also be living right there. They have to live with the results. If there aren’t experts in the group, hopefully they’re consulting with some so that the neighborhood group doesn’t settle for uninspired, ineffective “fixes” like posting 20 “slow down” signs on front lawns and calling it a day. Citywide groups would be the next best bet. Then, regional or statewide. It’s not that most towns/cities have super unique circumstances that make them need to operate separately from others. It’s just a matter of setting priorities; how many people are going to be as jazzed about working on changes that impact people three towns over where they rarely step foot? That said, we would all benefit if there were more interaction, offline, between these smaller groups.  

If you want to be invited to a statewide transportation nerdfest gathering, email me and I will add you to the list. This is a social/networking event, and not a conference/summit. 

• Leave Car In Driveway One Day Per Week 

If you are someone who owns a car and uses it daily, the quickest way to understand how roads don’t work for us is to leave that vehicle turned off at least one day each week. Biking to brunch will help you to understand in your body that a stripe of paint does not guarantee safety. Walking to the market will open your eyes to how even though you have a heavy load of groceries and it’s 20°F, you will have to wait and wait to cross a road because despite having a lit WALK signal, motorists are permitted to turn right on red and there’s nothing in the intersection to make them so much as pause to look before turning. Riding the bus to church will show you that even though the bus stops directly across from your destination, you have to walk a few minutes out of your way in order to legally cross the street; doing this on a Sunday will show you that the infrequency of Sunday bus service means having to make tough decisions — illegally cross the street to make the bus in time after cutting short a conversation, or wait another half hour or more in the cold for the next one? 

The less convenient this experiment is for you, the stronger the lesson. Live in the suburbs? Have kids with ridiculous extracurricular activities several towns away? You are the ideal candidate for this exercise in seeing how other people live every day. Urban parents with far fewer resources walk, bike, and take the bus routinely; suburban parents: you are not more deserving of comfort or convenience than your urban counterparts are. Your time is not more important than their time. After engaging in this enrichment activity for a few months, you’re basically obligated to advocate so that all people have safe, convenient, efficient, comfortable, and diginified transportation options. 

• Talk About It

Awareness alone is not the answer here, which is why I did not list this as the first action item; however, it does matter that we talk about the frequency and severity of traffic violence. When you hear someone crack a joke about mowing down pedestrians and cyclists, intervene. Do this even and especially if it’s in the workplace. Let them know it’s not funny, and why. 

If you have used a mode of transportation besides private vehicle, also talk about that. Business owners often have a distorted idea about who their patrons are. Why? Because motorists squawk non-stop about parking and traffic. There’s the obvious move of asking a manager where the bicycle parking is located, but you can also carry your helmet or bike lock indoors with you. Consider reaching out to businesses and organizations that provide car storage advice on their websites but don’t mention nearest bus route or bicycle parking; do this while giving them copy and paste text they can transfer to their website. If they then choose not to make revisions, then you know where they stand and can follow up with them about how much cyclists and pedestrians contribute to the economy. Another option to spread awareness about how people reach the shops is to take selfies with your bike or bus pass or tote bags, and tag businesses. There are other creative ways to communicate your transportation mode to business owners — get brainstorming! You might be wondering what this has to do with safe streets. Countless improvements get blocked by ignorant folks in the business community who view things like bicycle lanes and wider sidewalks, made possible by removing parking, as damaging to their bottom line.  

• But, Watch Your Language

The language we use when talking about traffic violence, street safety, and mobility in general matters. 

1. Avoid exonerative language
   • Take “accident” out of your vocabulary unless referring to a toddler peeing their pants. Other words that are more appropriate include “crash” and “collision.” “Incident” is better than “accident” but vague and feels euphemistic. 
     
     
   • Whether or not a motorist remains at the crash site does not turn back time to prevent the crash. This detail may matter in court, but to the general public and conversation, it does not.
     
     
     
   • We now consider it gauche to speculate on what a person was wearing when they were sexually assaulted; we should have the same restraint when discussing assaults that use vehicles.
     
     
2. Use active voice
   • Assigning agency is not the same as assigning blame. As of early 2025, most motor vehicles in the United States still require a driver. Do not erase the driver from the scene of a collision. For example: The driver of a Ford F-150 collided with a person crossing Main Street. Those are clearly stated and verifiable facts. I typically design the description so that the largest/heaviest vehicle is named first. Think about it. If a pedestrian simply walked into a parked Ford F-150, what would usually happen? Embarrassment. Possibly a bruise. It’s the moving vehicle striking the person that causes a higher level of harm. But remember: that vehicle did not all on its own hit the person walking or cycling . . . unless it did, in which case the language should reflect that: An unoccupied Ford F-150 collided with a person crossing Main Street. The next sentence can fill in some of the missing details. 

     Because most mainstream media do not use this sentence structure, yet, it will probably sound weird to you at first. With practice, you won’t even have to think about it. There will be some occasions when many more words are needed, like if the crash involves multiple vehicles and stationary objects, in addition to the humans outside of vehicles. Use as many words as needed to paint an accurate picture. The penchant for soundbite media has done us all a disservice. Break away from that. 

3. Use critical thinking  
   What gets aired or printed immediately following a collision should be treated with skepticism rather than taken as the whole truth. Without an investigation having taken place, reporters will at times publish remarks traced back to biased sources like the driver, passenger in suspect vehicle, an eyewitness, or the police who have not yet reviewed video of the scene. Do not repeat accusations that a victim “darted,” “dashed,” or “came out of nowhere.” 

• And Insist Others Watch Their Language 

Journalists have an ethical and professional responsibility to report information accurately. Their own Code of Ethics states “neither speed nor format excuses inaccuracy.” 

When you see local media — whether television, radio, online-only, print, legacy, whatever — failing to use active voice and avoid exonerative language, contact the reporters and those above them at the outlet, as needed. I made a resource that you can even send to those reporters to help them out; yes, they have deadlines to meet, but their work will improve tremendously if the only adjustment they make is to revamp the template from which they work when reporting on collisions. 

How reporters talk about crashes impacts how the public perceives the problem. How we understand the problem impacts what solutions we seek. 

As we embark on this new year, please commit and recommit to advocating for safer mobility for all. The 64 cyclists and pedestrians we lost in Connecticut last year all deserved better, whether they were out walking their dog, collecting cans for redemption, or making their way home after a long day of work.