SUV flips over after cars collide on Downtown New Haven section of Route 34

See coverage in the New Haven Register:

Both vehicles were driving east on Route 34 when a 1993 BMW driven by Victor Bell, 50, of 81 William St., lost control and struck a 2007 Toyota RAV4 driven by Crystal Neuhauser, 41, of 218 Rose St. Ext. in East Haven, state police said. Neuhauser’s vehicle then struck a Jersey barrier in the median and rolled over onto its roof.

The crash once again highlights the unsafe traffic conditions on the connector and surrounding roads, particularly travel speeds that are too high for a densely-populated downtown area with thousands of children, elderly and disabled residents.

Mismanaged traffic in the area has led to several serious pedestrian injuries and fatalities, as well as repeated, but unfulfilled, requests for change by thousands of local residents. For more coverage of Route 34, click here and here.

The ongoing crashes on Route 34 not only cause severe physical and psychological harm to residents, they also each create hundreds of thousands of dollars in shared costs, through insurance, emergency response and police investigations. These costs are socialized, with each family paying more than $1,000 each year for them whether or not they drive to work each day -- in total amounting to nearly $200 billion per year.