“Pandemic Driving” Need for Speed Crack Down By CT State Police
CT State Trooper Curt Booker from the Connecticut State Police's Aggressive Driving Team can tell you exactly what "pandemic driving" is and how tragic it can be.
In late December, 19-year-old Jacob Provost and 16-year-old Olivia Cyr died in a horrible crash on Route 44 near the Connecticut/New York border. The cause of the accident was excessive speed.
During the pandemic in 2020, 306 drivers lost their lives on Connecticut highways, according to WFSB's website, and many of those lives were due to driving too fast. This is what CT State Police call "pandemic driving."
Because of the pandemic, accidents were down by 30,000 in 2020, but people dying in those accidents did not drop as the traffic volume dropped, and the reason was "the need for speed."
I have personally witnessed it myself. Most of the time, as I'm driving home from the radio station around noon on Super 7, where the posted speed limit is 55 mph, cars go flying by me, clocking between 70 and 85 mph. Obviously, the posted speed limit is just a suggestion. I usually drive that stretch of road between 65 and 70 mph.
When I'm cruising I-84 heading westbound towards Waterbury, where the speed limit is 65 mph, many cars go whizzing by between 80 and 90 mph. Trooper Booker told WFSB that many of the drivers he stops for speeding don't even realize how fast they're going.
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