Police: Speed a factor in crash that killed 3

SEYMOUR — Speed appears to be a factor in a fatal head-on collision Wednesday night that killed three people, including a toddler, on a notoriously dangerous stretch of Route 34, police said.

The crash was the latest on a section of the road, running along the Housatonic River from Derby’s Lakeview Terrace to the Stevenson Dam Bridge, that has seen hundreds of crashes in recent years, figures from the University of Connecticut’s Crash Data Repository show.

Police officers, firefighters and medics were called to Route 34 near Argonne Terrace around 10 p.m. Wednesday for a reported head-on collision, according to Seymour Police Chief Paul Satkowski. When they arrived, they found both vehicles with heavy damage.

Satkowski said a female driver, a female occupant and a toddler in the backseat of one vehicle suffered life-threatening injuries “from the severe impact of the crash.” The three were pronounced dead at the scene, he said.

The female driver in the other vehicle was extricated by the fire department and rushed to Bridgeport Hospital with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries, Satkowski said.

Police did not immediately identify the victims in the crash. Satkowski said officers are “still attempting to make notification to the next of kin.”

He said a preliminary investigation indicated a vehicle was driving east on Roosevelt Drive toward Derby with another vehicle headed west toward Oxford.

“In the area of Argonne Terrace, the vehicle traveling east failed to negotiate a curve in the roadway, at which time the vehicle cross(ed) over the double center yellow line and crash(ed) head-on into the vehicle traveling west on Roosevelt Drive,” Satkowski wrote in a summary of the incident. “Speed is considered to be a factor in the crash.”

He said Roosevelt Drive was closed to traffic between Route 188 and the Derby city line for roughly eight hours while investigators reconstructed the crash scene. The state Department of Transportation detoured traffic until the road reopened around 6:30 a.m. Thursday. Satkowski said the investigation is ongoing.

Jennifer Torok said Thursday morning she was in her home on nearby Argonne Terrace and heard the crash.

“I was in my house and I heard a big thump,” she said.

Her dog jumped at the noise, but Torok said she didn’t initially realize what happened. “I thought it might just have been a delivery.”

The winding, scenic section of road where the accident happened had such a high number of crashes that the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments convinced the state Department of Transportation to install centerlane rumble strips beginning in 2014, which run about five miles on the road.

When a vehicle starts to drift over the center lane, a vibration shakes the car, alerting the driver. The strips are credited with playing a role in reducing fatal crashes on scenic, rural roads, DOT officials said.

From 2007 to 2014, there were 291 crashes and eight deaths on the stretch of road, according to UConn’s data. Figures from January 2015 to March 2020 show there were 215 crashes and two deaths.

Torok said she’s seen too many fatal accidents while living nearby.

“People drive down so fast,” she said. “It’s so sad. It’s so, so sad.”

The incident Wednesday night was the sixth fatal crash in Seymour since 2018, according to UConn data. The most recent was last July, when an 18-year-old Derby man was killed in a crash on Clinton Road.