This week, Connecticut’s State Transportation Commission said it plans to install another 200 wrong way detection systems at highway entrance and exit ramps. The announcement was made along with the release of statistics that show technology can be an effective tool in preventing wrong-way crashes.
Speaking with members of the legislative Transportation Committee, Garrett Eucalitto, State Transportation commissioner, said that the 328 roadway fatalities last year was short of the 366 killed in 2022, but it is still unacceptable.
At the beginning of February, Connecticut had already seen 27 roadway fatalities, according to Eucalitto, which is on pace with the statistics from previous years.
Connecticut already has 137 locations where integrated wrong-way detection systems have been installed. This technology notifies a highway operations center and local emergency officials if a vehicle is detected moving in the wrong direction on a road. Eucalitto emphasized the effectiveness of this system in saving lives.
"These have been activated more than 230 times by drivers,” he said in a statement to CT Insider. “The vast majority of them have self-corrected. When the flood light goes on, the flashing light comes on, our team notices—because we get an alert, we see the video of it—that most people are self-correcting themselves."
The systems proved effective in July of last year. A potential accident was prevented in North Haven when driver who was lost drove the wrong way up an Interstate 91 exit ramp, according to a report from NBC Connecticut at the time.
Josh Morgan, the communications director for the Connecticut Department of Transportation, said the signs helped prevent 55 lives in 2024.
“Yesterday there was that self-corrected driver, a life or multiple lives saved because they did self-correct, they did come back down the ramp,” said Morgan to NBC Connecticut at the time of the incident.
Eucalitto said there is still enough money in the state's initial $60 million investment to install more than 200 more wrong way detectors which they plan to roll out over the course of the year.
Source: NBC Connecticut, CT Insider
