A woman had her walker knocked from beneath her hands by a car hurtling through Westville, propelling her to the street with an injured hip.
The driver was found at fault — and received a verbal warning to watch out for pedestrians in crosswalks in the future.
Thomas Breen photo
The busy intersection at Whalley and Blake.
That latest car-pedestrian collision took place Feb. 13 at around 2:19 p.m. on Whalley Avenue near the intersection with Blake Street.
It comes as New Haveners are reeling from three pedestrian fatalities so far this year, following last year’s spike of nine walkers killed by cars on city streets.
A video (shown at top of this story) recorded by a nearby surveillance camera at Lotta Studio shows the woman, who is 57, leaning on her walker as she crosses north on Whalley Avenue.
She started crossing the intersection while she still had the right of way, with nearby cars stopped at their respective red lights and seven seconds left flashing on the pedestrian signal head.
Within a few seconds of the pedestrian crossing signal reaching zero, a grey SUV hurtles around the corner from Blake Street, smacking right into the woman’s walker and leaving her sprawled in the middle of the road. The driver honks as the car continues by. (This is at the 13 second mark of the video above.)
A half-dozen passerby rush out from their cars and the sidewalks and nearby stores to make sure she is OK while she remains lying in the middle of traffic.
Lt. Rosa.
Westville top cop Lt. Elliot Rosa told the Independent that police cited the driver as at fault, and issued a verbal warning.
The verbal warning was for failure to grant the right of way to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
The woman was crossing in the crosswalk with the pedestrian right of way, but she didn’t make it to the other side of the street in time. Rosa said the operator of the car turning left onto Whalley from Blake Street did not drive through a red light, but rather started driving when he got the green.
“It’s still the responsibility of the driver” not to endanger pedestrians when they’re crossing the street, he said.
He said the woman complained of experiencing hip pain after the incident. She was transported to the hospital for further medical attention. He declined to release the identity of the woman.
Police Chief Otoniel Reyes had not seen the video until shortly before this story was published.
“This video is alarming,” Reyes said. “This is a serious incident.”
He said he plans to look further into the incident and into whether stronger penalties should be applied. Meanwhile, he noted that the finding of fault against the driver ensures that the driver, not the woman, will be liable for any insurance costs. “The officers did appropriately find the driver at fault, which will afford the victim the ability to obtain compensation.”
Rosa said he frequently gets complaints from Westville residents about pedestrian safety at that intersection as well as at the nearby intersection of Valley Street and Blake Street that is close to the entrance to Elm City Montessori School. He said this Feb. 13 incident is the first pedestrian-car crash that has taken place in the neighborhood since he took over as top cop in December.
This Independent reporter recently went out to the intersection and timed the length of the pedestrian signal. It came in at just over 18 seconds, with the red flashing hand indicating that the lights are about to change appearing with 10 seconds left for pedestrians to cross.
City transit chief Doug Hausladen said the light’s duration follows national signal plan standard recommendations: a seven second walk signal (the white walking symbol) followed by a 10 second flashing warning sign with a countdown clock.
“We Put These Laws Into Effect For A Reason”
New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar (pictured), who chairs the state legislature’s Transportation Committee, described this video as showing “a perfect example of an operator being negligent with their vehicle, and they’re being left off the hook with a warning.”
Not charging the operator under the state’s vulnerable user law or with any other criminal infraction “goes against everything we’ve been working towards, he said. He pointed to the city’s Complete Streets manual he helped develop as an alder back in 2007 as well as the state’s safe streets laws he’s pushed while representing parts of New Haven and East Haven in Hartford.
Those laws are “all about street safety and pedestrian safety,” he said. “It’s always been about protecting this woman crossing the road.”
He pointed to Sec. 14 – 300d of the state statutes. That says that “each operator of a vehicle shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian or person propelling a human powered vehicle and shall give a reasonable warning by sounding a horn or other lawful noise emitting device to avoid a collision. An operator who violates any provision of this section shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars.”
He also pointed to Sec. 14 – 300, (b). That says that “a pedestrian started or starting across the highway on a “Walk” signal or on any such crosswalk on a green or “Go” signal shall have the right-of-way over all vehicles, including those making turns, until such pedestrian has reached the opposite curb or safety zone.”
“This is an example of someone not exercising due caution when operating a vehicle,” Lemar said.
“We put these laws into effect for a reason. And it is our expectation that they be used, particularly in light of the sobering state and national statistics” about pedestrian fatalities due to speeding and distracted driving.
Lemar said that, on March 2, he will be hosting a Transportation Committee meeting at the state legislature in which he will try for the second year in a row to push through a variety of new and clarified safe streets bills that died in the state Senate last session.
New Haven State Rep. Pat Dillon and New Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield have also introduced this short state legislative session Proposed House Bill No. 5038: An Act Authorizing Bonds Of The State For Safety Improvement On Whalley Avenue In New Haven.
The proposed bill calls on the State Bond Commission to authorize the issuance of $3 million worth of bonds “for the purpose of providing a grant-in-aid to the city of New Haven to improve safety on Whalley Avenue.”
On Feb. 10, the bill was referred to the Joint Committee on Finance, Revenue and Bonding.
“Whalley Avenue Has Become A Disaster”
Westville/Amity Alder and Board of Alders Majority Leader Richard Furlow (pictured) was also taken aback after watching the video on Thursday and hearing about the driver getting only a warning.
“That’s appalling,” he said. “Cars must yield to pedestrians that far in the crosswalk.”
He said that he and Westville Alder Adam Marchand, who also represents parts of Westville Village, are pushing for greater enforcement against distracted driving and speeding.
Furlow said that the police department has applied for a $60,000 grant from the state that would allow for a “targeted high visibility enforcement program” for distracted driving during the periods April 1 through April 30 and Aug. 1 through Aug. 15. One of the areas included in that distracted driving crackdown is Whalley Avenue.
“If we’re honest about it, Whalley Avenue has become a disaster,” he said. Cars routinely travel at well above 25 miles per hour, whipping around anyone actually going the speed limit.
He said he plans to promote a “Slow Down New Haven” campaign this summer to encourage driver education, heightened police enforcement of speed limits. “Our city as a whole has to slow down,” he said. “We’re just driving too fast on these streets.”
Furlow said he also plans to amp up his pursuit to get the state to allow New Haven to reduce the speed limits on city-owned side streets from 25 miles per hour to 20 miles per hour.
And he plans to keep pushing for traffic calming measures on Blake between Valley Street and Jewell Street, as well as for a crossing guard stationed at the intersection near Elm City Montessori.
He pointed out that city transit chief Doug Hausladen recently installed a “No Turn On Red” sign at the northbound facing light at Valley and Blake.
And while Blake is not eligible for speed humps because its daily through traffic is at too high of a volume, he called on city staff and neighbors to come up with some creative traffic calming measures beyond delineator tubes.
“Add 8 Seconds There & You’re Good”
Urban planner, Westville resident, and Safe Streets New Haven activist Carolyn Lusch (pictured above at Lotta Studio) said she has some ideas as to what would make the Valley-Blake intersection safer.
First and foremost: curb radius reduction. That would mean reconfiguring the intersection, either through a bumpout or a protected bike lane or delineators or some other means, to force cars to make a slightly tighter turn from Valley onto Blake or Blake onto Valley. Cars have to go slower in that situation, simply because of the design of the intersection.
“I worry about that intersection every time I cross” with her child in a stroller, she said.
“It’s extraordinarily dangerous,” added fellow Westville resident Bennett Lovett-Graff about the nearby Blake Street intersections. He pointed out that there is a podiatrist on that very block and many people with mobility issues.
With such relatively little amount of time to cross the street when there are pedestrian signal heads, and with no stop signs near the various playgrounds on Blake Street, “It’s an accident waiting to happen.”
Lusch said she was recently awarded $1,000 through the Westville/West Hills Community Management Team’s Neighborhood Public Improvement Program (NPIP) grant to spearhead citizen-led traffic calming for Blake Street. That money will likely be put towards painting the Valley-Blake intersection in some way to encourage slower speeds and safer pedestrian traffic, she said.
Several other pedestrians who regularly use the Whalley-Blake intersection said on Thursday that they hadn’t heard that a 57-year-old woman had been struck there the week before — but they have had their own negative experiences crossing there, even with the light.
“Getting across there is very difficult,” said Central Avenue resident Cathy Jackson (pictured above). That’s because of how little time pedestrians have to cross. She said she frequently sees the public bus drop off passengers outside Lotta Studio. Those passengers then try to cut across the street soon after disembarking, and rarely have enough time to make it through without hustling.
Sarah Connolly (pictured) said she was almost clipped by a bus not too long ago when she was crossing east on Whalley across Blake, and a bus turned without seeing her. She had to jump back on the curb.
She looked up at the pedestrian signal flashing, and noted that the countdown only begins at 10. She said that if that number was a bit higher, perhaps the woman who was hit by the car last week would have had enough time to cross safely.
“Maybe add eight seconds there and you’re good,” she said.
A verbal warning. Unbelievable.