Another Driver Hits Another Pedestrian

WE NEED ENFORCEMENT and a change to our culture of reckless driving.

Please Mayor Elicker, call in Governor Lamont. The state should be able to fund a special task force, to start increased enforcement of existing traffic laws. The additional officers could be paid for from the increased ticket revenue

This is insane. I think it's time to revisit red light cameras.

One can sit on their ass for 13 years passing all kinds of laws - that clearly falls short. There needs to be a comprehensive education marketing plan for pedestrians and drivers. You know practical stuff. No you don't just auto walk into a crosswalk and no, you don't plan on driving through a crosswalk where there are walkers. I've seen plenty of both.

As I said before.To fix this problem.It takes cooperation of Cyclists Pedestrians and Vehicle Operators.The drivers in each case should be prosecuted.But I am sick and tired of Jaywalkers People who Text and walk in the streets without looking. Cyclist running Red Lights and riding on the side walk.Just today on my way to the edge of the woods.I saw people crossing in the middle of the street to go to stop and shop on Whalley Ave.I saw a guy coming out the Triple AAA walking in the middle of the Block and texting and the car came to a stop and the other car almost hit him in the rear.And the guy walking put his middle finger up at the driver.We need to go after everybody.

It isn't just reckless driving. It is reckless living-- our whole distracted, entitled , oblivious mentality. There is a price to be paid for not caring about anything but your phone.

There is one area of driver carelessness that I would like to see enforced, although it wasn't a factor is the professor's incident; that is, how drivers to not STOP on red before making a right turn. They tend to treat right on red as a "yield" sign rather than the way the right-on-red law is intended. A second peeve of mine is how drivers stop beyond the line and breach pedestrian crosswalks. These are quality of life issues, relatively small, but with big consequences. Tickets need to be written on thesse infractions, then we will see more careful drivers.

Every weekday around 5 pm I drive down Orange Street from Trumbull Street towards College Woods park. Without fail, every single day I see a car run a red light at the Humphrey/Orange intersection (most commonly a car heading NE on Humphrey toward Whitney) and/or the Cold Spring/Orange intersection (most commonly a car on Cold Spring). There are often many pedestrians, cyclists around as well. Enforcement at these intersections at this time of day would easily bear fruit.

When ever I walk in New Haven I walk defensively I keep an I on oncoming traffic. I don't walk across the street with the thought that I have the right of way even if there is one of those yield to pedestrian signs. I make sure the car is stopped, some drivers I can tell push hard on the break because drivers tend to look for red stop signs to their right or traffic lights above or to their right. Any walker on the left hand is not on priority sight they tend to see that person much closer to the cross walk. A cross walk is a painted line it is not a force field. I agree with j0y, that Right on Red has become Slow and Roll. Drivers you may have the green light if your going straight but once you need to make a turn you don't! As for pedestrians a "Vulnerable Users Law" what wordsmith's we have in our Legislature's, the new law isn't another excuse to stride across the street with head held high with ear buds in or head down and eyes locked on screen.

As streets become more congested with private cars driving too fast, as drivers ignore laws they needed to know to pass their driving test, as they and and pedestrians become more hurried and more distracted and as alternative modes of transportation - public transit - are not readily available and convenient or are carelessly used - bicycles, scooters - the inevitable clash of humans and machines takes place. These are not accidents. The system almost mandates that they occur. Peoples' lives and well being require systematic, systemic changes. Short and long term. How long will it take before there is political will to attend to and carry out these changes? Why are people in such a hurry? Why are people violating laws? Why is the driver in this instance driving with a suspended license?

Enforcement is good. Comprehensive pedestrian safety features, road diets, and protected bike lanes are also necessary and badly needed.

Above all, for safety and environmental purposes, we need to reduce the number of cars on the road. New Haven is small. No reason in the world one should need a car to get from one part of town to another. We need convenient transportation alternatives.

For Pete's sake, anyone talking about mythical pedestrian misdeeds in this context needs to have their head examined. Driving with a suspended license, making a left turn from a side street, and heading into a crosswalk--it's a perfect trifecta of entitled driving behavior. Once again--it's down to nothing more than chance that the victim wasn't killed.

We need to find ways to reduce the number of cars on the roads. The bottom line is that roads are too congested in new haven. An added benefit would be cleaner air, quieter neighborhoods, and safer streets for pedestrians and cyclists - who have just as much a right to move about our city as car drivers.

Why don't we ask people to reapply for their license every few years? All of these recent incidents seem to come straight out of the CT driver's manual. Here's page 15:

<blockquote>Before you turn left across traffic, look for a safe opening in the traffic. Remember, oncoming traffic, including bicycles, always has the right-of-way. Look to the street onto which you are turning to make sure that no vehicles, bicycles or pedestrians are in your path – this would leave you stuck in the path of oncoming traffic. Look one more time in the direction of oncoming traffic before
you turn...
Do not rely on traffic signals or signs to tell you that no one will be crossing in front of you. Some drivers do not obey traffic signals or signs. Look left and right at an intersection, even if other traffic has a red light or a stop sign. This is especially important just after the light has turned green. This is when people on the cross street are most likely to hurry through the intersection before the light changes to red. Some drivers who fail to pay attention may not stop. <blockquote>

https://portal.ct.gov/DMV/Drivers-Manuals/Manuals/Drivers-Manuals

Believe it or not, there are places where drivers actually respect other users of roadways -- I can think of Massachusetts and Maryland, for starters.

What they have, and what is missing here, is a culture of obeying laws, combined with enforcement.

People are people. They are the same, whether they are in CT or MA or MD. People here can be taught, encouraged, reformed. What it will take is leadership, especially at the municipal and state levels.

There needs to be a multi-faceted approach:

1) Massive attempts at education about the rules of the road -- for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians -- all.

2) Greatly stepped-up efforts of enforcement.

3) Modification, by the state, of the amounts of traffic citation revenue kept by the state and the city, respectively, as a way of funding the education and enforcement programs here on the ground. (Isn't the ratio now something like 90%/10% in favor of the state -- giving the city no incentive whatsoever to write tickets? It needs to be at least something like 50/50 -- or even better, 40/60.)

4) Red light cameras.

5) Speed cameras. (As someone commented here, I think yesterday, for a different article, they WORK, in Maryland.)

The time has come to stop wringing hands. The time has come to stop being utterly outraged when witnessing unbelievable behavior -- drivers crashing through red lights and stop signs, cyclists making up their own rules, pedestrians jumping into roads out of nowhere (and not even looking around). The time has come to halt the literal carnage that is happening.

The time has come for a SERIOUS change in roadway culture in this city.

Crosswalk safety has been an ongoing challenge in Wooster Square as well - Chapel Street and DePalma Court especially. Our Block Watch has been advocating for traffic calming strategies with the City and engaging along with our Police District Manger in public safety messages aimed at vehicles and pedestrians. We have all been worried about when the next incident might be fatal. It is time to warn all drivers and pedestrians ... safe driving and walking on our City is critical!

citoyen: Yes, the measures you suggest are needed. They are absolutely part of the solution. I would implore you to also consider the recommendations of independent experts in the field of traffic safety, urban design, and walkability. These recommendations include road diets, pedestrian protections and safety features, and reducing the number of cars on the road.

I am extremely troubled by this pattern. As someone who has had close calls and a few very light collisions in this city on both sides of the wheel (and as a cyclist), I spend a lot of time grumbling about other drivers, other pedestrians. I'm sure I've made the same mistakes without realizing it, and I feel like the elementary classroom rule of "don't worry about what other people are doing" could help most drivers. But - traffic cams? more police enforcement? (When officers set a shining example by violating traffic laws all day, driving while texting, etc?) We can imagine better.

If Yale is going to spend all this money reshaping downtown New Haven, the least they could do is advocate for something genuinely revolutionary like a car-free city exterior or something, with shuttles to take people to/from parking areas and to different districts. Traffic and parking is one of the worst things about any urban experience, and catering cities to single-use transport is not the future.

Could not stop in time. 19 pedestrians and cyclists will die today and every day in car-pedestrian/cyclist crashes mostly because of the flaws and inefficiencies of the 'Killer' right foot braking method which we are all forced to use when braking an electric or automatic vehicle, (poor reaction time and stopping distance – If this driver could have applied the brakes ¾ of a second sooner and stopped 40 - 60 feet shorter, would there have been a crash?) There is no scientific justification for the right foot braking method other than 'that's the way it's always been taught'! NHTSA and GHSA studied this issue and concluded that female drivers have the biggest problem with this braking method (and male drivers if they would admit it). But instead of continuing to blame female drivers why are they not looking for a solution by testing this braking method against the much safer, easier to learn and retain with age, Left Foot Braking Method? Perhaps ME TOO is not the only victim of a male systemic belief. Note: Simply using your left foot to brake is NOT, repeat NOT the Left Foot Braking Method.

FYI

Yesterday around 5:00 PM I was stopped at the light on Orange and Chapel waiting to turn left onto Chapel. The light Changed and I was beginning to move and all of sudden 4 kids came around the corner onto orage doing back wheel uncycle like wheeles, right in front of my moving vehicle.. I had to hit the brakes....... I see this quite often in this part of town, sometimes they are on motordriven bikes......

FYI

Red light cameras are a very partial fix at best and a distraction at worst. They would help, but would take years to implement more than a couple cameras, assuming you could even get that law passed in 1-2 years. Politicians want to get that done so they can point to something concrete and distract advocates with something to work on for a few years.

To solve the issues here you need to be narrowing streets and creating better walking/biking infrastructure, like most other cities around the world have done. The project to narrow travel lanes, add crosswalks, walk signals, and bike lanes on Edgewood Avenue has taken 10 years and isn't done yet? In most cities, even in North America, many projects that are 200 times the size of this are being accomplished in a 2-4 year period.

Also having police officers issue tickets from time to time for things that matter would help, though certainly less helpful than infrastructure would be. Right now they give out no more than a few dozen tickets a year for the specific types of traffic violations that actually cause injury, like speeding and zooming around corners and through crosswalks. Stopping and ticketing a few people for expired license plates or running red lights, and doing nothing about the more harmful types of infractions, doesn't get at the root of the issue.

Rich Pizzo: it's unfortunate that this happened to you. People, especially kids, will be irresponsible. As others have pointed out, we need outreach to pedestrians to encourage safety.

That said: it is the responsibility of the operator of a 2500lb moving vehicle to be constantly aware of their surroundings. It sounds like you are, and that's great. Unfortunately, the statistics show too many drivers are far less responsible than you.

Pedestrian signals need to be user-friendly, intuitive, responsive and smart. Most in the city are not.

I take the train quite frequently and walk back from Union Station to downtown. The intersection of Crown and Temple is a one way, with a no turn on red, but the pedestrian signals remain red, and one must wait two cycles for them to change - provided the pedestrian pushes a button. These should be automatic. The same is true for temple and George. One feels like an idiot pressing the button, and hearing no confirmation or seeing no countdown. There is nothing to indicate on most crossings that the apparatus has registered an intention to walk, like a flashing signal, countdown or timer. As such, pedestrians do not trust the signals, or think they are broken and don't use them. In addition, the signals are a hodgepodge of technology - some announce "wait" some flash, some don't, but the discrepancies in them usually leads the user to assume half are broken.

I have been writing alders about this forever, but the downtown alders are too busy passing Iran resolutions, redesigning the flag or legalizing weed, oh wait, they can't. Yale School of Architecture should partner with the city and update all the pedestrian crossings. The technology is so very antiquated. And the Republicans in the statehouse won't invest in infrastructure with trucks only tolls, and meanwhile Martin Looney holds the entire economic development of the region hostage because of NIMBY, refusing to expand Tweed Airport because it will cause some residents of East Haven to move some tomato plants.

The bottom line is pedestrians won't use signals that seem broken, unresponsive, or dumb. I am always flabbergasted that Connecticut is usually ranked a "smart state" and New Haven is home to Yale, but there is so very little collaboration with the knowledge and skill set on that campus. Instead of grandstanding the Yale alder should be linking up skill sets for urban planning w/ NH.

anonymous wrote:
[quote] Red light cameras are a very partial fix at best and a distraction at worst... Politicians want to get that done so they can point to something concrete and distract advocates with something to work on for a few years. [/quote]

I appreciate & agree with the other measures you recommend, but I think you should take another look at red light cameras -- as well as speed cameras.

Every 5mph of increased speed dramatically increases the likelihood of a pedestrian fatality when a collision occurs, and I think we can all agree that speed limits (along with red lights!) are pretty routinely flouted in New Haven. There's also a shortage of police time and a concern about disparities in enforcement. So why not just automate the whole damn thing? Iceland and China are two countries I've been in over the past few years that are doing this: if you speed and are caught on a camera, you get a ticket mailed to you (similar to New York tolls-by-mail). Simple, equitable, efficient, and satisfies two of the three Ps of negative reinforcement: predictable & prompt.

Try [b] really enforcing [/b] speed limits and see how quickly drivers slow down.

Plus, I wonder whether it would be possible to use new software on the infrastructure we already have? (New Haven already has thousands of cameras around the city for various purposes -- police, traffic, weather, disaster response, etc.)

@ShadowBoxer is also totally on point about pedestrian signals. Many of them make no sense and apparently no one at the city ever bothers to do QC. I'll try to do a better job documenting these on SeeClickFix as I encounter them.

I am sometimes a pedestrian, sometimes a biker, and sometimes a motorist.

The one similarity is that the infrastructure for ANY kind of transportation in New Haven is lousy. Nobody has it good. Pedestrians are frustrated, bikers are frustrated, bus riders are frustrated, and automobile drivers are frustrated. Everyone is frustrated that this "smart" city is so stupid when it comes to serving its citizens with basic and reasonable transit options.

Here's a typical New Haven response to a reported and persistent traffic problem:

Citizen: "This traffic light / intersection is awful and traffic is backed up and people are dying"
City Response 1 : "Thank you, we will inspect."
City Response 2 : " We examined this traffic light / intersection and found no problem and it conforms to state and local standards."

I have asked Rep Pat Dillon and Sen Gary Winfield to support red light cameras for years. They have refused. I would like them to comment here about why they do not support red light cameras

I've lived in several similar sized East coast cities and NH has the worst traffic patterns out of any, by far. Immediately after getting off of 91 or 95, my blood pressure goes up. None of the lights are timed. At the intersection of 2 one-way streets, traffic stops in all directions, effectively adding a third street to the intersection. Think this has the opposite effect where it makes otherwise good drivers more reckless.

NH has more traffic slowing strategies than other similar sized cities, and adding to this has, if anything, made the problem worse. Bicycles are great but not a viable full time transportation option in New England.

Instead of doing the same unsuccessful idea harder, why not implement basic traffic easement approaches that are common in cities with a far lower pedestrian fatality rate?

Either make a commitment to the finest public transportation in the world, or wait a decade for self-driving cars to make our streets accident free.

@William Kurtz: Thank you. You beat me to it—I was about to vent on that same subject of people going off topic!!

"The injuries were non-life-threatening; she was later released from the hospital with a fractured skull and broken hip (update)."

I'm confused here. A hospital sends someone with a fractured skull and broken hip home? I'm obviously not a medical professional but how are these "non-life-threatening"? When I went to the ER with what turned out to be a broken hip, I was not sent home but to surgery next day and a considerable amount of recuperation thereafter.

Just asking,

Something is happening.

"A 7-year-old boy walking to school with his mom Thursday morning was fatally struck by a Jeep in the crosswalk of a Brooklyn street, becoming the city's sixth pedestrian fatality in five deadly days. Video obtained by the Daily News shows the mother and son were in the crosswalk and had the right of way when the Jeep made a sudden right turn, mowing them down."

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-child-struck-east-new-york-brooklyn-20200227-osj2hfnw2rhlblvwit65bd5deq-story.html

This is certainly not to excuse distracted and careless drivers, but I think an investment should be made in coordinating traffic lights in the city. I know I am generally in a state of frustration given how obviously uncoordinated the lights are. This must lead to poorer and more aggressive driving overall.

This phenomenon is happening in Hamden also. In many cases these drivers shouldn't even be on the road. No license, suspended license, no registration, driving without minimum insurance, misuse of license plates. The list goes on and on. You can't even wait at a bus stop without being run over.

As long as people are addicted to cell phones, more will be hit by cars. Every day I see people in a trance texting both while walking and driving exchanging nonsense calls that have no bearing on what they should be doing and that's being aware of their circumstances.
Hard to feel sorry for those who put themselves into the way of cars and many times its a sudden action that makes it impossible for the car to stop. A few weeks ago a young girl walking out of a store on the phone walked right into me, this is being repeated many times every day. Stop and talk or text all you want but not while walking or driving, grow up for pete's sake, what's so all fired important that lives have to be put at risk to exchange useless information.

@ steve--- is this my steve from Tweed articles? If so, I am pleased to agree with you on something! Pedestrians are distracted and careless but they are no match for a ton of steel hurtling at them. However, When you accept the privilege and responsibility of driving; you agree to obey law and to drive carefully. If not; your license should be suspended.
Question:
So what do we do with the phlebotomist who mislabels blood due to distraction on cell phone? the secretary who is not paying attention to your requests? The clerks who sit at desks on cells , then act as if a customer has bothered them with their awful request for service. What shall we do with them?

CityYankee @ steve—- is this my steve from Tweed articles? Yes its me. I feel it's the pedestrian who bears the most responsibility for his safety. Being preoccupied with a cell phone is a recipe for disaster.
I'm not such a bad guy for wanting more flights at Tweed, not so many that it would drastically change the complexion of the area, but perhaps 10-20 daily flights spread over the course of a day. 6:00 am to 6pm.
Those who complain about late night noise do not realize airliners don't operate late night flights, but private aircraft do.
Allegiant has said they would run flights with the present runway, they might experience weight restricted flights from time to time and American's flights are doing well. It's time for all to realize that Tweed is not going away, but it's in everyone's interest to move the airport ahead and at the same time, incorporate changes in the airports access from the local streets.
While I support the current plan to pave the overruns, I would be opposed to going beyond that plan as it would not yield any benefit to airport operations.
I have used Tweed for decades and now with the jet service, it beats the long trek to Bradley and at times I need to be dropped off or picked up and it does not work a hardship on friends or family who offer a ride.

People are still babbling about pedestrians on cell phones? If the victim in this story, or in any of the recent stories about drivers hitting pedestrians with cars had been on a cell phone, there might be a point to be made.