Three people were seriously injured and two were killed in a series of moped crashes across Connecticut in a little over a week. The four serious crashes occurred between Nov. 2 and Nov. 11, which left three people in critical condition and led to the deaths of a Meriden man and a teenager from New Haven, according to officials.
The first fatal crash was reported in Hamden on Nov. 2 shortly before 4:40 p.m. when officers responded to Mix Avenue near the entrance to an apartment complex where authorities believe 34-year-old Shareef Johnson of Meriden was headed south when a driver using the entrance to the complex veered into his path, according to the Hamden Police Department. Johnson was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Police said the driver stopped briefly before taking off. The vehicle was later located by authorities.
Five days later, police in Bridgeport responded to the area of Broad Street and Railroad Avenue at 11:35 p.m. after a scooter driver apparently lost control of the bike on wet pavement and crashed, according to the Bridgeport Police Department. The driver allegedly got back on the scooter and took off, leaving the passenger, a male, suffering from serious head injuries. He was taken to a hospital and listed in critical condition, police said.
On Monday, a passenger on a scooter was killed when a 17-year-old New Haven boy lost control of the bike while heading south on Route 15 in New Canaan around 1:30 p.m., according to Connecticut State Police. The crash occurred as the teen merged into the exit lane and lost control, crashing the moped and leading to his passenger, 16-year-old Janese Mabel Espinoza of New Haven, being thrown from the bike, state police said.
She suffered “life-threatening” injuries and was initially taken to Norwalk Hospital before being transferred to Yale New Haven Hospital for a high level of care, according to state police. Espinoza died the next day, state police said.
The following day, officers with the Hartford Police Department responded to the area of Albany Avenue and Garden Street on the report of a motor vehicle vs. moped crash and found two men who were on the moped suffering from serious injuries, according to Lt. Aaron Boisvert. The men were taken to a hospital where they were listed in critical condition. The driver involved in the crash remained at the scene, Boisvert said.
Oddly enough, a series of similar crashes occurring in a short stretch tends to happen every so often in the state, according to Dr. Eric Jackson, a research professor at UConn who serves as the executive director of the Connecticut Transportation Institute and the director of the Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center.
“This happens oddly a lot where we’ll maybe have a stretch of wrong-way crashes that, for some reason, there’s like four or five wrong-way fatalities that’ll occur in a week period,” Jackson said. “These rare random things happen all the time.”
According to the state Department of Transportation, preliminary data shows that, through Nov. 12, there have been 457 crashes involving a moped or scooter in the state so far this year. Five fatalities and 72 suspected serious injuries were reported, DOT officials said.
Preliminary data from 2024 shows that there were 417 crashes involving a moped or scooter that led to seven fatalities and 70 reports of serious injuries, according to the DOT.
“Looking at the numbers from last year to this year, they are consistent, but as I say, ‘One fatality is far too many,’” said Eva Zymaris, a DOT spokesperson.
Zymaris and Jackson noted that the popularity of mopeds, scooters and similar devices have exploded over the past several years.
“I know that mopeds, just like e-bikes, have grown in popularity,” Zymaris said. “They’re definitely part of the conversation more and more.”
“Overall, there’s kind of been this transition to these micro mobility devices,” Jackson said.
Another factor that can lead to an increase in crashes is the time change in early November and earlier sunsets.
“It seems like it kind of messes with people’s biological clock and their work day,” Jackson said. “Things kind of go a little haywire for a little while until people kind of get settled back into the new time routine.”
During stretches where multiple similar crashes occur throughout the state, Jackson said officials with the DOT often reach out to him and ask for him to dig into crash data and try to determine what’s happening.
“We’ll run some numbers, we’ll create a tracking form where we start tracking these things,” Jackson said.
More often than not, Jackson said, a series of crashes cannot be attributed to an overall issue or problem that has suddenly arisen. Other times, state officials will quickly put together an ad campaign trying to address the issue before it gets out of hand.
“A couple of years ago we had, I think, eight pedestrian fatalities in a matter of like three days,” Jackson said. “And the DOT at that point said, ‘Alright, we’ve got an issue. We’ve got a problem.’”
In a matter of days, the department partnered with Connecticut State Police to create a “very targeted ad campaign,” Jackson said.
“Education is always key,” Zymaris said. “And if we see a trend or we see something is happening, we’ll always want to kind of put our heads together, put some messaging out there.”
Overall, traffic fatalities so far this year are down compared to the last three years. As of this week, 224 traffic deaths had been reported, down from 288 in the same time period in 2024. In 2023, there were 266 traffic-related fatalities reported through this time in November, which was down from 313 in 2022.
While the numbers are encouraging, officials are looking ahead to the holidays when travel picks up and a lot more people are on the roads.
“It’s the same message that we would apply every other day,” Zymaris said. “We know that people want to get from point A to point B to see their loved ones, but it’s important that you do so safely. So we’re always reminding people when you hit the road, when you’re behind the wheel, please give yourself plenty of time to get to where you need to go.”
“Please ditch those distractions,” she said. “We can’t say that enough, especially if you’ve got a car full of people or even just your spouse next to you in the passenger seat. Give them your cell phone. Give your cell phone to someone else. They could be the ones that help you with the directions, changing the radio, that kind of thing.”