City, State Pressed To Calm Deadly Forest Road

Patty McGill and her neighbors have seen enough airborne cars jump curbs and land in their yards, taking out landscaping and front porchesand occasionally killing people.

McGill has taken that frustration to government officials, pressing them to save lives and protect her property and that of her neighbors along Forest Road (aka state Route 122) between Willard Street and West Elm. One elected official, state Rep. Pat Dillon, said she is working on legislation to address the longstanding problem.

I dont want another mother or father to get that call where someone informs them that their child was in an accident and that they were killed in an accident that could have possibly been prevented, McGill said.

Both city and state officials say they hear McGill and her neighbors and they are looking at everything from more speed enforcement and traffic reconfiguration to legislation to fix the problems.

A 1.25-mile stretch of Forest Road winding through Westville saw some 90 car crashes between 2011 and 2013, and the number-one contributing factor is people tailgating, said Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) spokesman Kevin Nursick. The fender-benders usually happen during rush hour; 75 percent of those crashes result in some kind of property damage. A fatal crash McGill witnessed in October 2012; it wasnt the first.

Nursick said it is a common problem that is impacting lives all over the statepeople disobeying the rules of the road by speeding, tailgating and generally driving distracted.

Conn DOT is not an enforcement agency, so we dont have any tools in our arsenal to help curb speeding drivers, he said. But its a safety issue and its a personal responsibility issue. We see this type of behavior all too often and its difficult to curb it and enforcement is key to bringing motorists into compliance if they fail to do so voluntarily.

Five years ago city officials tried to tackle the problem after the a speeder killed a neighbor, Jerry Gross, and another speeder sent a cop to the hospital. Both those crashes took place at a blind dead-mans curve at West Elm and Forest.

Click here, here, here for stories about those previous efforts to find a solution. Today, as Patty McGill can tell you, the problem hasnt gotten any better.

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City, State Pressed To Calm Deadly Forest Road