‘Make the right decisions,’ a plea ahead of a busy holiday travel weekend

Heading into Labor Day weekend, reminders are coming in from officials about safety and drunk or impaired driving. It has already been a deadly year on Connecticut’s roadways, 216 people have lost their lives.

AAA anticipated millions would choose to drive to their destinations for the long weekend. But with all those big numbers there is an increased focus on safety following that number of deaths CT DOT considers jaw-dropping.

“I’m going to be defensively driving, so that I don’t end up in an accident,” said Nicholas Krauss, when we caught him on Rte. 15 headed from Maine to Long Island.

He is one of the millions anticipated to be behind the wheel this weekend. He said passing through Connecticut hadn’t been bad so far.

“I have hit a few spots of traffic where you get 5 to 10 minutes waiting,” he said.

 Others headed the same way agree but anticipated a tri-state tie up.

“We got out of Boston with relatively no traffic so you gotta pay for it somewhere,” said Keegan Carmichael also from Maine.

 State officials are headed into the weekend cautious considering the year we have had on our roads so far. 216 have been killed so far in 2024.

“That’s several more than at this time last year so we are outpacing last year, and we have a lot of year left to go,” said spokesperson for CT DOT Josh Morgan.

 The Department has signage up, usually offering driving reminders about crashes ahead or detours to take, now displaying how high the roadway fatality number is.

“We want people to see that number and say wow that’s startling that’s scary that’s sad and hopefully change some of the driver behavior,” said Morgan.

 State Police noted they will be stepping up patrols over the holiday weekend, looking for impaired drivers.

That topic was thrown into the national spotlight Friday after NHL star Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew were hit and killed by a suspected drunk driver in southern New Jersey. It’s a tragedy rocking the sports world, including here at home. UConn men’s hockey coach Mike Cavanaugh worked at Boston College during Johnny’s first two seasons.

It’s a tragedy the CT DOT considers preventable and has highlighted a number of times this summer.

“People are driving drunk, people are driving distracted, people are speeding and driving aggressively and that is when tragedy strikes,” said Morgan.

In 2021 the last year of verifiable data, the DOT says almost 39% of driver deaths were linked to impaired driving. Roughly 8% higher than the national average. The death toll has even caught the attention of some passing through.

They want you to consider others when out for the holiday.

“Drunk driving is a silly mistake, put aside that $20 for the uber home and make the right decisions,” said Krauss.

And technology continues to come online to help prevent unnecessary deaths on Connecticut’s roads, including involving those who are impaired.

Following more than 200 traffic deaths in Connecticut this year, a focus is put on speeding and distracted driving during a busy holiday weekend.

CT DOT has 75 wrong way detection systems up and running across the state. On pace to see 100 up and running by the end of the year. They estimate the systems are currently turning away one person each weekend.