“The biggest consideration in how fast people drive isn’t the posted speed limit or how traffic signals are timed, but the street’s design speed[…]. Traffic engineers assume that people will drive fast on a particular road, so they build wide lanes hoping that they will keep these fast-moving cars farther from one another and thus safer. But the wider lanes don’t just accommodate the posted speed limit – they actually induce higher speeds. When the road removes obstacles to speeding, it cancels out any safety benefits that the extra room would have given”
– from Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution,
by Janette Sadik-Khan and Seth Solomonow
Drivers, assisted by poorly designed vehicles and roads, have killed at least five pedestrians, so far, this year in Connecticut.
ROCKY HILL
ROUTE 99
JANUARY 12, 2025
“Route 99 in Rocky Hill is the site of the first publicly announced fatal pedestrian crash in Connecticut this year. This happened around 5:20 PM on Sunday, January 12, 2025.”
That’s how I posted about this preventable death on Bluesky and Instagram because I get alerts about all this stuff and knew that there were three other serious crashes involving pedestrians already this year, one of which happened earlier that day in Danbury on an interstate. While I was hoping for the best, as I always do when I see these alerts, I’m also not a fool. A pedestrian struck on a highway does not have great odds of recovering.
Route 99 in Rocky Hill is given the name of the Silas Deane Highway. I prefer to use state route numbers because they more directly expose the street for what it is, but in this case, the name is precise. This, too, is a damn highway. The speeds aren’t as high as on I-84, but they’re high enough that I knew this person’s odds were only somewhat better than the, at the time, unidentified pedestrian on I-84. And I knew this because they don’t shut roads down to investigate for hours if the person who was hit was taken to the hospital with only a broken arm; they would never dare inconvenience drivers over mere pain, inconvenience, and medical bills.
The driver of a 2018 Tesla Model 3 – a Wethersfield resident – slammed into a pedestrian on Route 99. Newer models have an “active hood” feature, and if you don’t want to hate humanity, don’t go reading what anonymous Tesla owners have to say about it on message boards. Nothing has been said about what safety features this vehicle may or may not have had, and if any were functional at the time of the collision. No explanation was given for why the resident of a neighboring town, presumably familiar with this road, did not avoid colliding with a woman using the crosswalk.
Within 24 hours of the crash, the victim of Route 99’s negligent design was identified as 59-year old Rocky Hill resident Bisera Djurkovic.
Bisera was a native of Montenegro who was working at wedding gown/formal wear alterations shop in Rocky Hill shortly before her untimely and preventable death. She was a widow and parent of six. For about the last six years she was living with one of her sons, while making trips back to Montenegro to visit her other children. Her funeral was held at the Bosnian-American Islamic Cultural Center in Hartford; her body returned to Montenegro for burial.
There have been a number of crashes resulting in injuries at this intersection of Route 99 and the driveways for AutoZone and Aldi/Kohl’s. You might think it in the best interest of business owners and property managers to at minimum advocate for safer areas around them. Living customers, I would think, would be better for the vast majority of businesses. Why would you want it to be dangerous, not to mention hideous, around your store? Act in your own best interest, folks! In this case, it means getting on the phone to both the CT DOT and Rocky Hill’s decision-makers.
According to the Connecticut Crash Data Repository, this collision happened on Route 99 northbound as Bisera was using the marked crosswalk in front of AutoZone. No public explanation has been offered for why the Tesla’s driver did not avoid striking Bisera, who was using the painted crosswalk.
The posted speed limit is 40 MPH. There’s no physical median. This means that if you are someone who needs more time to cross than what the pedestrian light offers, you are stranded without even a sliver of safety.
There are pedestrian signals, but drivers are also allowed to make right turns on red at all four legs of the intersection. Walkers are only given the illusion of safety with striped crosswalks, and those are only on two of the four intersection’s legs. Although I do not have firsthand knowledge, I have been told by frequent users of this intersection that the pedestrian light is shorter than necessary for what many people would need to safely cross five lanes of traffic.
Route 99 in Rocky Hill and Wethersfield is one strip mall after another, with apartment buildings mixed in. There are bus stops along Route 99. This means people walking to their jobs, to go shopping, to go home, to visit the doctor, to catch the bus. Anyone not driving with the expectation of encountering pedestrians should have their license immediately revoked and vehicle impounded.
Four pedestrians have been killed on the Wethersfield section of Route 99 since 2015; that is the same road design as what you see in Rocky Hill. Too many lanes on a road with too many business entrances; no intersections that prioritize pedestrian safety in sight.
Three of those four fatal crashes in Wethersfield were near the Rocky Hill line. The deadly collision on January 12, 2025 makes for four fatal pedestrian crashes on a 1.1 mile section of road in the last ten years.
You don’t need to know all the gory details of the collision to know that this wasn’t an accident or mere tragedy. It was preventable. A 6-lane road with a 40 MPH speed limit in an area densely populated with retail, medical facilities, and housing is a choice.
What if that 1.1 mile section was the distance from your home to your child’s school? Would those four pedestrian fatalities feel different to you then?
DANBURY
INTERSTATE 84
JANUARY 12, 2025
Around 6:30 AM on Sunday, January 12, 2025 — before sunrise — a one-car collision spiraled into a situation that left two dead, one of them being a pedestrian outside of a disabled vehicle.
A 21-year old New York woman was driving a Hyundai Tiburson sports coupe on I-84 west when she struck the right guardrail and ended up in the left lane facing oncoming traffic.
There were two passengers in the vehicle. Carlos Jimenez Molina, 36 of Danbury, remained inside. Ronald Omar Tello, 27 of Danbury, exited the disabled vehicle, becoming a pedestrian.
An Avon man was driving a 2021 Lexus RX SUV in the left lane when he struck the Hyundai, causing it to spin in front of a tractor trailer being driven in another lane.
Additional details were not revealed, explaining which vehicle(s) hit the pedestrian. It is also uncertain if the Hyundai’s driver had also exited the vehicle becoming a pedestrian; she received “minor injuries.”
Jimenez Molina and Tello were both killed in this multi-vehicle crash around 6:30 on Sunday morning.
The exact location of the collision is unlikely to be shared until this is entered into the CT Crash Data Repository, but was described as happening between exits 8 and 7.
It’s a 55 MPH highway with seemingly nowhere to move a disabled vehicle on the left side.
There’s a lot we don’t know, such as if the disabled vehicle had been jammed up against the median guardrail, preventing occupants from opening doors that would take them to a safer place to be stranded – the green space in the highway’s middle.
We don’t know if occupants had concussions or suffered from disorientation following that first collision, leading them to step out of a vehicle and into the highway. We don’t know how much time elapsed between them being stranded in the left lane and the SUV driver crashing into the coupe.
The CT DOT, about two weeks after this fatal crash, issued a statement urging motorists to stay inside of their vehicles when they experience an emergency on the highway; that’s fair, but we still have to acknowledge that this collision also killed a passenger who reportedly did not exit the vehicle. If we know that human nature is to get out of the vehicle, and we have known this for some time, why do we continue to allow design that does not acknowledge this? Why aren’t there better areas to pull over? Why do we think that 55 MPH is reasonable for anyone except professional drivers who have special licenses?
It’s not surprising that this was not the first pedestrian killed on I-84 in Danbury. Several have died here since 2015, and there’s quite a cluster near the site of this most recent preventable death. In the 2019 crash that took the life of a 29-year old, the report said that this area was “dark-not lighted.” Sunrise time was not until 7:19 on Sunday, December 12 – about an hour after the collisions occurred. One would hope that any insufficient lighting known about in 2019 would have been corrected since, but that’s something we won’t “know” until this recent crash makes it into the database.
Why the scare quotes? I’ve seen plenty of reports state that there was lighting when I was familiar enough with the area to know that this was false. If you have a single bulb across the room from you on, how well can you read by that? Technically, someone could claim there was lighting.
It’s possible that the general public will never get any of that information; pressure your local reporters to do better jobs by following up on fatal crashes in their area. Actual knowledge changes perceptions and that leads to change.
GLASTONBURY
GLASTONBURY BOULEVARD
JANUARY 11, 2025
Phillip Burleson, a 61-yr old, was attempting to cross Glastonbury Boulevard with several other people around 5:20 on a Saturday night when somehow a motorist did not see or react to a group of people crossing in an area where pedestrians are expected to be. This is not a roadway through the hinterlands.
According to his obituary, Phil was a native of North Carolina who “joined the U.S. Air Force directly after high school in 1981 and served as an electronics technician. At his first assignment at Sembach Air Force Base, Germany, he met Leslie, an airman who also had been stationed there, while standing gate guard duty. Phil went on to join the U.S. Army Reserves as a Drill Sergeant, serving his country until 1992. Making the transition to civilian life, he joined NAVCO Security Systems as a service technician and through 33 years of hard work and dedicated service, rose through the ranks to become a Senior Vice President of Operations for the U.S. East Coast. Phil had many hobbies and passions he was able to share with friends and family. He was an avid golfer, skier, at-home chef, car enthusiast, and mountain biker. Phil was famous for his pizza creations, smoked BBQ and espresso martinis. Anytime Phil cooked or played bartender, you were always taken care of. Phil was larger than life and had a positive impact on everyone who met him. It didn’t matter who you were or how long you knew him, he genuinely cared about the people around him. He loved his neighborhood brothers, whom he frequently made late for dinner as they engaged in cul-de-sac gossip. Skilled at construction and proud of his handyman skills, Phil never backed down from a home repair challenge and was a fan of YouTube DIY videos. A devoted animal lover, Phil has rejoined his beloved, departed furbabies- Chabu, Sammy, Roxy, and Lilly – and is survived by his cherished feline family – Sarge, Moki, Izzy, and Penelope.” His wife, Leslie, and two sons are among those mourning him.
That night, Phil was trying to cross from north to south at what police have called 110 Glastonbury Boulevard – so essentially from one strip mall plaza to another. The motorist was traveling west.
Glastonbury could have opted to upgrade to actual full stop lights in the last few years. They could have made this a four-way stop. Instead, they took a half measure.
This intersection is designed so that motorists can travel at high speeds on this five lane road when the area is not congested. Drivers coming out of the plazas have stop signs, but those traveling on Glastonbury Boulevard do not have to stop.
What do pedestrians get? An illusion of safety. Looks expensive, lacks substance.
While nothing is done to slow vehicles on Glastonbury Boulevard, three of the four legs of the intersection are painted with crosswalks. Without looking up the answer, do you know what that means?
Engineers did not want to inconvenience drivers too much.
Glastonbury in recent years added shark’s teeth to the intersection, along with three RRFBs. I would bet money that the average driver has no idea what shark’s teeth mean.
Glastonbury posted signs that might seem useful, telling drivers to “yield here to pedestrians,” but yield does not mean the same thing legally as stop, and of course someone would have to be traveling slowly enough to read this and know it.
RRFBs are razzmatazz. They do not sense someone waiting to cross and automatically illuminate; they require a button be pushed. There’s a delay between hitting button and when light goes on, which not everyone is necessarily aware of.
But, here’s my issue with them. They are a brighter version of a yield sign. The lights don’t flash red. They flash yellow. Drivers see yellow to mean it’s optional to slow down; yellow does not convey urgency. They don’t mandate motorists hit the brakes.
We don’t know if the RRFBs were activated when SEVERAL people were trying to cross Glastonbury Boulevard early that Saturday evening. What we know is that a motorist did not drive with any awareness of the space they were in – just like the person who hit Bisera Djurkovic in Rocky Hill on Route 99 the next day.
There are bus stops on this road, indicated by signs and one of the more eye-catching bus shelter designs in the area. There are marked crosswalks. There are hi-vis signs telling drivers to look for pedestrians. They are RRFBs. There are a number of restaurants and shops on both sides of the road, along with a hotel. I don’t know how else to convey the message that this is a place where people should be expected to exist outside of cars.
The posted speed limit is 30 MPH.
Three pedestrians and cyclists were injured at a mid-block crosswalk nearby since 2015. Each crash diagram shows the user IN THE MARKED CROSSWALK when plowed into by someone on Glastonbury Boulevard. Two of these three crashes happened since the RRFBs were installed and one of them was just in early December 2024.
WEST HAVEN
I-95 North
JANUARY 15, 2025
The driver of a 2010 Toyota RAV4 SUV was traveling so fast and close to the vehicle in front of him that rather than have time to stop and avoid rear ending them, he opted to swerve into the highway’s center lane. This was just before 12:30 in the afternoon.
By all descriptions I’ve seen, the driver who braked in the left-most lane was successful at doing so in time to not strike a pedestrian who was alternately described as running and walking across I-95.
The motorist in the RAV4 who chose to switch lanes was the one who ended up hitting Suniel Michael Ross, 41, of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. I never saw an obituary for Ross, but according to his LinkedIn profile, he had an MBA from Bridgewater State University and had seventeen years of active and reserve Navy service.
Reporters stated that Suniel was, for reasons unknown to police, running across all three southbound lanes. After crossing the center median, according to news reports, he began walking across the northbound lanes.
Nothing was said about Suniel having a disabled vehicle, and that combined with the location viewable in aerial news photos suggests that he entered the highway on foot. I-95 is a six lane divided highway with a speed limit of 55 MPH.
EAST HARTFORD
ROUTE 44 AND LONG HILL DRIVE
JANUARY 17, 2025
At 7:37 PM, the driver of a 2001 Buick Park Avenue killed a still unidentified male pedestrian who was using Route 44 at Long Hill Drive.
Within hours, the media named the driver; they still have not told us who the victim was, and it has been seventeen days. The media said the victim was 61; sometimes the age is misreported, and this may have been the victim’s birth year, making him a couple years older.
There are all kinds of reasons that the news has not told us who this was. Some reporters continue to treat fatal crashes as traffic reports, caring primarily about what inconvenience may be caused to other drivers when a road is closed while police investigate why a person needlessly lost their life, what made it so that their family and friends are now bereft. Other reporters treat traffic violence as a law and order issue, but in a juvenile cops-and-robbers kind of way, having no grasp on how systems work. If someone was being a casually reckless driver, reporters don’t bother to call that out, but if the motorist was intoxicated/impaired, texting, driving a stolen vehicle, or evading responsibility by leaving the scene, then suddenly their ears perk up and reporters see this as an opportunity. It’s a missed opportunity when reporters ignore the victim’s humanity and when they don’t seriously discuss the role of vehicle and street design. An industry that has lunged toward being the fastest can’t be bothered with nuance. Speed kills journalism and speed kills humans.
Had this media omission been made only a few days later, I might be more understanding, but it was days before the inauguration and staff had not yet needed to put all attention toward reporting an authoritarian’s hourly attempts at undermining democracy.
These are people. They aren’t obstacles to getting to work. They aren’t numbers. They have people — nearby or faraway — who care about them. They had interests and hobbies. Talents. Jobs. Pets. The sooner reporters feel all of that, the better. Reporters managed to find out who in the DC army helicopter vs. commercial airline crash had Connecticut connections and humanize them. Imagine if we treated every single car crash as if it were a plane crash, wanting to understand what happened and how to prevent it, looking at the victims as actual people with stories. Imagine if our media did that every single time there was a traffic fatality.
If “Burnside Avenue” is ringing a bell as a problem area, that’s because it’s been one. Just last September, a pedestrian was injured at this intersection in East Hartford by a turning school bus. This unnamed male, perhaps 61 or born in 1961, is the fifth pedestrian to be killed on East Hartford’s section of Route 44 since 2015. But, that’s probably not why you know that “Burnside Avenue” is a problem.
There was an unholy stink raised about it in 2011/2012 after drivers killed three cyclists on it in a span of 18 months. That doesn’t count the pedestrian or car occupant deaths, by the way.
Safety advocates put out ghost bikes, memorials that are inherently political. They are visual reminders of where cyclists were killed, and where that crash could have been prevented, usually through better design. The Town of East Hartford talked big about doing a “road diet,” a term I will be placing in scare quotes for reasons that will make sense shortly.
A newspaper article from summer 2015 said that there were 35 bike and pedestrian crashes on Rt 44 in East Hartford from 2009 to time of publication. From mid-2015 until most recent data (September 2024), there were at least 37 bike and pedestrian crashes on the same road.
The much-publicized “road diet” wrapped at summer’s end of 2018. There have been three fatal pedestrian crashes since then. To be fair, one of those happened east of the project area, because the “road diet” did not even bother going to the town line.
What else needs to be said is that while paint-only bike lanes were added, there weren’t really improvements made that would benefit pedestrians. There was an opportunity to add curb extensions at key intersections and make more meaningful changes. They chose not to.
East Hartford is currently engaged in a rebranding campaign. How are they going to polish Route 44 under these circumstances?
Besides the five pedestrians who were killed on Route 44 since 2015, there were also several crashes in which a driver or passenger died.
Portions of Route 44 are 35 MPH. Where a driver killed a pedestrian on January 17, the posted speed limit is 30 MPH. There are bus stops near this intersection. You can see the bus stop sign on the Google Maps screenshot above.
It’s a three lane road, but actually wider because of the paint-only bicycle lanes. A “road diet” that does not involve some kind of physical element – barriers, grooved pavement, speed humps, curb extensions – isn’t really a road diet. It’s more like a resolution asking to be broken.
There is a painted crosswalk across Long Hill Drive and then across Route 44 on the west side of the intersection.
West of this intersection, there is sidewalk on both sides of Route 44. East of it, the sidewalk ends for the south side. In Google Maps, you can see a person walking in the street because of a missing sidewalk. There is a park entrance on the side where the sidewalk is missing, something I learned years ago biking through.
According to information in the Connecticut Crash Data Repository, which comes from the police report, this area was dark and did not have street lighting.
Contact East Hartford’s Director of Public Works
and the CT DOT to report these problems with a state road.
TAKE ACTION
Do you live in Rocky Hill or use either the Wethersfield or Rocky Hill segment of Route 99 frequently? Contact the Rocky Hill town engineer: ssopelak@rockyhillct.gov & 860-258-7672 and the CT DOT to report the aforementioned problems with a state road.
Live in Glastonbury or use Glastonbury Boulevard often? Contact Glastonbury’s Town Engineer about the incomplete street design.
Live in East Hartford or routinely use that section of Route 44, anywhere from the town line to where it meets Route 5? Contact East Hartford’s Director of Public Works and the CT DOT to report these problems with a state road.
Do none of those things apply to you? Scroll to the end of this post to learn about other ways to help prevent pedestrian fatalities.
