Connecticut’s New Haven is a high-danger zone for trucks, according to an editorial Wednesday in The New Haven Register.
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/06/16/opinion/doc4c1844d4efcc9348188618.txt
Citing recent data from the state Department of Motor Vehicles, the newspaper said that “drivers of commercial vehicles on highways in New Haven ended up in well over double the number of accidents than than in any other city in the state.”
There were 183 truck accidents in New Haven from November 2008 to October 2009, according to the Motor Vehicle Department.
Hartford only had 70 truck accidents during that period, and Milford had 69.
The Register noted that the state motor vehicle department doesn’t know why these Nutmeg State cities have so many truck accidents. But one theory is that a lot of trucks take I-95 through New Haven rather than Interstate 84 in Hartford, according to the editorial.
Another idea is that construction on two new bridges is distracting truckers, and that the traffic reroutings because of the construction work are causing accidents.
The other “plausible explanation” for all the truck accidents, we are told, is the poor design of local highways and the heavy traffic in the area. The paper points out that “the intersection of I-91 and I-95 pops up on lists of worst bottlenecks in the country.”
Obviously, these are problems that can’t be solved overnight. But the Register said that police and the motor vehicle division have kicked up their inspections of trucks, and the paper hopes those increased checks will continue and perhaps make “accident hot spots” safer.