When a call for a car crash comes in for Roosevelt Drive in Derby, David Lenart said first responders brace themselves.
“When a call comes in there, everyone assumes the worst because of where it is,” said Lenart, chief of the Derby Storm Ambulance and Rescue Corps.
Now, after two serious crashes just last month — including one that killed an 85-year-old man — the state Department of Transportation will be examining a portion of Roosevelt Drive to see if additional safety measures are needed.
Officials from the state Department of Transportation will be looking at an almost one-mile stretch of Route 34 (Roosevelt Drive) between Cullens Hill Road and Lakeview Terrace — a stretch just above the Housatonic River referred to locally as “Pink House Cove.”
“There’s never just a minor accident there,” Lenart said. “I would bet there are more accidents at the intersection of Main Street and Derby Avenue, but when an accident happens on that section of Roosevelt Drive, it’s usually a head-on, worst-case scenario.”
Upon an inquiry from the Valley Indy Monday, Derby police released information Nov. 20 saying that Albert Sargent, one of the drivers involved in a Roosevelt Drive crash last month, died Oct. 25.
The safety review comes at the request of Derby officials, said Kevin Nursick, a spokesman for the state DOT.
“We’ve been contacted by the town and, probably over the next two weeks or so, we’re going to go out there to meet with town officials and discuss potential additional signage or roadway markings,” Nursick said.
October saw two serious crashes on Roosevelt Drive.
On Oct. 19, two vehicles collided near the intersection of Cullens Hill Road. Two people were hospitalized after that wreck.
Then, a head-on crash occurred in the same general area Oct. 24, killing Sargent.
Sargent’s death is the second on Roosevelt Drive in Derby in two years.
On June 7, 2010, a 43-year-old Derby woman was killed on that stretch of road after a head-on crash.
Nursick said a cursory look at the crash data between 2007 and 2011 does not indicate a glaring safety problem along that approximate one-mile stretch.
There were 27 crashes between Cullens Hill and Lakeview Terrace in five years, Nursick said.
Meanwhile, 2011 DOT data shows 11,300 vehicles a day passed between the two-mile stretch of Route 34 between the Derby-Seymour town line and Derby’s North Avenue (the Dew Drop Inn and Apollo Pizza).
Nursick said the DOT wants to talk to local officials, including the police department’s “local traffic authority,” to get a better sense of what’s happening on the road.
Nursick said the Pink Hose Cove stretch may need more road signs. Or the Derby Police Department may need to step up speed enforcement. Or some type of road improvement may be in order.
It all depends on what the review unearths, Nursick said.
Derby residents who live near Lakeview Terrace and Cullens Hill Road already know speed is a major problem on that stretch of Route 34.
They post it on the Valley Indy Facebook page every time this publication reports on a crash there. There is a 40 mph speed limit on the road.
“Cars speed on Rte. 34. If you do the speed limit on 34, cars are on your tail,” Ellen Amodeo posted on the Valley Indy Facebook wall after a crash on the road Oct. 24.
“Speeding? How about how they drift OVER the yellow lines? A friend of mine was almost killed by a tractor trailer there. A neighbor WAS killed there. And many times I’ve had to vear away from the drifters!” Donna Ingalls posted, also on Oct. 24.
Lenart said Route 34 between Cullens Hill and Lakeview is deceptively dangerous. Roosevelt Drive is especially unforgiving in a stretch that features a giant retaining wall on one side.
“I’m not an engineer, but that’s a tough, windy spot. You have a giant wall on one side and a river on the other,” Lenart said.
However, Lenart said Derby Storm Ambulance and Rescue often responds to crashes further west on Route 34, near McConney’s Farm.
“The recent ones we’ve had, one of them was way down there,” he said.
Regarding the stretch under review by the DOT, Lenart said “speed probably plays a factor, but I think if people are unfamiliar with the road that plays a factor, too. And, in some spots, it’s a tight, narrow road.”
Nursick said data from the crashes on Roosevelt Drive between 2007 and 2011 show speed tied for first place as the most common underlying factor contributing to the wrecks.
Speed was cited in six of the 27 crashes — as was “animal or other obstruction” in the roadway, Nursick said. Of the six animal-triggered crashes, four involved deer.
The number of animal crashes seems unusually high for a short stretch of road, Nursick said, and will be examined as part of the review. Lenart pointed out Osbornedale State Park is next to the stretch of Roosevelt Drive in question.
The second-most common underlying factor connected to the crashes is something police classify as “driver lost control,” Nursick said.
“I can’t really define that anymore than the driver just lost control of the vehicle,” Nursick said. “Generally we tend to view that as the motorist was doing something they should not have been doing and managed to lose control of the vehicle.”
