Street Racing Damages Cars, Drivers Injured

New Haven (WTNH) August 14, 2008 -- Cars parked along a city street in New Haven were heavily damaged Thursday morning, and some blame illegal street racers. It was around 12:30 a.m. Folks in this residential neighborhood were at home, sleeping or watching TV when they heard crash after crash and came out to find the damage.

Witnesses say two cars were speeding up Lexington Avenue. They ended up crashing, but those two cars also crashed into parked cars along the street doing serious damage. At least six parked cars are damaged.

Residents say cars speed up Lexington Avenue all the time, but this was actually unusual. They think the cars might have been racing when they crashed. One flipped over. The drivers were injured and taken for medical help. There was no word from the police about charges just yet, but one resident said at least three of the parked cars are now totaled.

"I'm disabled, I have no vehicle now, and the other people, this lady here just put a lot of work into her car, a neighbor put a lot of work into her car and so did I, and now we're without vehicles because of people driving like this," Rob Lowry said.

Lowry says he and other residents have complained about speeding on the street before, and asked the city to put in a stop sign or something to calm traffic.

The city is in the middle of a campaign to try to make the streets safer for everyone who uses them, with a new traffic calming ordinance in the works, and the city just set up a hotline to report traffic problems. The hope is to do something about dangerous streets before things get quite this bad. The number to call to report a traffic problem is 203-946-6956.