Anyone driving on the highway has seen the Department of Transportation’s latest attempt to encourage safety.
Electronic signs have been informing motorist about the number of people who have died on roadways statewide – 303 as of Nov. 26, the latest numbers.
“My heart sinks, honestly,” Stephen Panus said of his reaction when he saw those signs.
Panus’s son, Jake, died in 2020 at the age of 16. Jake was the passenger in a drunk driving accident on Block Island.
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Panus has since become an advocate for roadway safety efforts, especially lowering the blood-alcohol content level, or BAC, from 0.08 to 0.05.
“It's changed our life in every way, shape or form possible – completely devastating,” Panus said.
The signs are getting attention – at least from lawmakers.
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“My first thought was ‘that’s dark,’” Rep. Aimee Berge-Girvalo (D-Ridgefield) said. “It certainly has me slowing down.”
The 303 deaths so far continues a deadly trend in Connecticut.
Motor vehicle deaths eclipsed 300 in 2021, at 302, and then skyrocketed to a 40-year high of 367 in 2022. The number dipped to 303 last year.
But Eric Jackson, executive director of UConn’s Connecticut Traffic Institute, estimates Connecticut will see roughly 330 traffic-related deaths by the end of the year.
He said fatal accidents have a variety of causes: speeding, distracted or impaired driving, and wrong-way drivers.
They can also happen on any type of roadway, but Jackson said they’re more common on local roads than on highways.
“Our interstates are designed to be safe because they don’t have intersections, everybody’s traveling in the same direction,” he said.
Berger-Girvalo said lawmakers need to address all types of accidents, but she was especially concerned about impaired driving.
Impaired driving accounts for nearly 40% of fatal accidents in Connecticut, according to the DOT, well above the national average of 30%.
Experts say alcohol remains the primary substance.
“We have no choice but to look very closely at that,” said Berger-Girvalo, vice-chair of the legislature’s Transportation Committee.
She expressed concern that tougher penalties and more policing won’t be enough to deter drivers, though. Lawmakers could also look to newer technologies.
The state has started installing alert systems for wrong-way drivers and now allows towns to utilize red light cameras.
The DOT is testing a car that uses infrared technology to detect when a driver is above the BAC limit. It can even detect if someone’s BAC is going up after they’ve started driving.
“The goal is to just really try to crack down and eliminate the vehicle’s ability to operate if that driver is impaired,” Jackson said.
