WATCH: Signage Unveiled In Southington To Stop Savage Collisions

SOUTHINGTON, CT — Nothing causes emergency responders more dread when rushing to an accident scene than knowing the crash is a head-on collision.

And given the physics of such automotive disasters, a wrong-way collision is never something police and firefighters want to encounter and it frequently results in fatalities.

Tuesday night, the state Department of Transportation and state and local law enforcers unveiled some new features in Southington aimed at preventing such accidents from happening.

They hosted a demonstration in Southington at one of the busiest parts of town near Interstate 84.

At a closed off-ramp on Queen Street in Southington, responders and state officials demonstrated the effectiveness of wrong way LED-flashing technology to stop a wrong-way driver.

A large uptick in crashes, fatalities and wrong-way incidents has those charged with saving lives scrambling to try and make sure their services are not needed as much as they are now.

The new features on the off ramps are hard to miss, featuring flashing red lights and massive "wrong way" messages on red-colored signs.

But given that many drivers who go on highways the wrong way are impaired, such actions are probably never full-proof, but any mitigations is a desired outcome.

“This year has been by far the deadliest year in recent memory, with 22 wrong-way fatalities occurring on the highways. In fact, 2022 exceeds the number of wrong-way fatalities from the previous three years combined. With more than 85 percent of wrong-way drivers found to be impaired, we need people to think twice before getting behind the wheel because one wrong move can be deadly,” said DOT Commissioner Joe Giulietti.

“Thank you to Gov. (Ned) Lamont, (state Sen. John) Fonfara (D-Hartford) and the General Assembly for providing the DOT with additional funds which allows us to install additional mitigation measures to reduce wrong-way crashes.”

In July, the State Bond Commission approved $20 million in funding for wrong-way mitigation measures around the state.

The funding has allowed the DOT to accelerate the installation of wrong way flashing signage at high-risk ramps in Connecticut.

The DOT is also exploring additional mitigation measures to help reduce wrong way driving in the state.

For more information on the wrong-way driver initiative, visit ct.gov/dot at this link.

For the full State of Connecticut announcement on the initiative, click on this link.