The best way to learn the difficulties of the fight to curb aggressive driving in our state is to go on the front lines and see what law enforcement is dealing with on a daily basis.
On the way to our interviews with state police, it was a typical day on Connecticut highways and byways.
We saw:
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- A pickup truck rip through an intersection at high speed to beat a stoplight
- A car going 60 mph cutting across two lanes of traffic in the sharp I-84 curve just after the Hartford Tunnel
- A school van, apparently with students on board, going 70 mph+ and then making a questionable lane change in front of another driver
Thanks to federal grants, state police warm weather campaigns that target impaired, distracted, and wrong-way drivers will now also have an amplified focus on aggressive driving.
It’s something Trooper Evan Goddard welcomes.
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“Hopefully with this campaign, we're able to do something to get it to the point where people feel do feel safe driving in, you know, their home state again”, Goddard said.
Trooper Michael Deane agreed.
He investigates fatal crashes and said the speeding component of reckless driving is what claims the most lives. “You're creating the perfect situation for an absolutely tragic scenario. You could drastically reduce fatalities by reducing speed and reducing just the weaving in and out of other lanes.”
It was not hard to find aggressive drivers and speeders, like a Massachusetts woman (with her child on board) going 82 mph in the HOV lane.
She pulled over and Trooper Goddard gave her a warning.
Trooper Goddard added though, that recently passed police accountability laws call for minimum standards on pursuits…that do not allow law enforcement to pursue in most cases if a driver takes off.
“In a lot of a lot of situations, we really can't follow them, we can't pursue them we can't, you know, do certain things, our hands are kind of tied behind our backs with with a lot of those things”, Goddard said.
A spokesman for state senate Democratic legislative leaders said police accountability laws passed several years ago only called for standards to be set that were then crafted by a statewide police council.
At the same time, state police say there are ways you can help.
If it’s safe, you can call or text 911 if you see aggressive driving.
They also welcome dashcam video.
“Dash cams have been a game changer. They have allowed me to see the scene as it unfolds and know exactly what happened, and this can trickle down all the way down to a simple speeding violation or failure to maintain lane. If you're able to send those videos into us, we can pull the license plate, it is possible we can see who's behind the wheel. and then we can follow up at their house and get more information that the public helping us out can only improve road safety," Deane said.
