The Connecticut Department of Transportation has released its proposals for the Connecticut General Assembly for the short legislative session this year with driver behavior and safety in mind.
The first Transportation Committee meeting was scheduled for Friday in Hartford, and the CTDOT has given the committee plenty to discuss. The proposed bills include banning the sale of online video converters, which allow passengers to stream videos from their dashboard, increasing penalties for distracted driving in work zones and whether cameras should be placed at proposed flex lanes on Interstate 84 in Danbury.
“We have several proposals that we look forward to discussing with the General Assembly. A lot of it is rooted in driver behavior and safety,” CTDOT spokesperson Josh Morgan said.
Morgan said the CTDOT is reintroducing a bill that would modernize the state’s hands-free law that was initially passed about 20 years ago.
“The law really hasn’t kept up with the technology that is out there now,” Morgan said. “A lot of these newer cars have basically an iPad or a tablet as the control mechanism for the vehicle in terms of controlling your radio, opening up your GPS, looking at vehicle diagnostics. There’s some really great safety features built when these manufacturers ship these vehicles.”
Morgan said that people are getting aftermarket adapters or converters that will disable the car’s safety and security features “to allow you to do things like stream Netflix or mirror your phone on there and play videos that you’ve downloaded. Just really dangerous things.”
Morgan said the CTDOT is proposing a bill that would ban video converters.
“We want to include this in the hands-free law but also to go a step further and to ban the sale and use of those video converters in Connecticut. It’s unfortunate that there’s a marketplace for this, and we are trying to get ahead of that and to limit its use because it’s really dangerous to have your eyes off the road and trying to catch up on the latest episode of whatever you’re watching,” Morgan said.
State Sen. Christine Cohen, D-Guilford, is entering her fourth session as the senate chair of the Transportation Committee. She said this is a topic the committee wants to address.
“The driving environment has changed much faster than driver behavior or the law has been able to keep up,” Cohen said. “While cars may be safer than ever, attention is worse than ever. We have this need to be constantly connected. Smartphones are just these distraction devices. And now, because there’s the ability to convert on-screen systems within the vehicles to stream a movie or a sports game — it’s incredibly concerning.
“I think we have more complex road environments to contend with in terms of traffic and congestion,” she added. “We have a human attention problem in this hyperconnected world. I think the committee really wants to address this. We’ve started to do so, and I think this might be the next step as we see this technology sort of increasing at such a rate.”
The CTDOT is also proposing to stiffen penalties for those driving distracted through work zones. Instead of a hands-free violation the CTDOT is pushing a bill that would upgrade the infraction to a reckless driving charge.
“Thinking of our contractors and our workers. If someone is going to be using their cell phone in violation of the state’s hands-free (law), but it’s in a work zone, we’d like to have that classified as a reckless driving charge and not just a violation of a hands-free law because of the inherent danger that they’re putting our workers and our contractors in if they’re using their phone traveling through a work zone,” Morgan said.
Morgan also noted that the CTDOT is proposing the use cameras to monitor the proposed flex lanes in Danbury on I-84. Flex lanes are proposed to be installed between Exit 3-7 in Danbury. According to the CTDOT, “the shoulder on the median side would be repurposed into a temporary travel lane during the busiest times to keep travelers moving.”
“We’re having a lot of conversations about what we’re going to do to hopefully alleviate congestion in Danbury on I-84,” Morgan said. “We actually have an innovative concept that we’re proposing called the flex lane which would not add capacity or widen the existing highway footprint but allow us to use the shoulders as a travel lane during high congestion times in the morning and evening rush hour commute.
“At the same time, we need to have the ability to have a potential enforcement mechanism or an eye in the sky mechanism because the lane is not going to be open 24-7, 365,” he added. “A part of our legislative proposal would be being able to permit the use of the flex lanes and also look at the possibility of camera enforcement or camera monitoring on the highways.”
Morgan said the cameras would be similar to ones previously used by the CTDOT in work zones as well as red light and speed cameras used in municipalities on state and local roads.
“This would just be another update to regulation that would allow us to use that type of technology only when it’s connected to a flex lane proposal,” Morgan said. “Because really what we don’t want to see is people who are using that shoulder as a main travel lane when it’s closed and also being able to keep an eye on it. If someone illegally dumps a couch or a mattress or does something and throws it onto the shoulder of the highway.
“We would never want to open up the flex lane at 5 p.m. to help alleviate congestion if there’s debris or something that’s going to block that shoulder or that traveling,” he said.
Morgan said the flex lane model has been successful in the Midwest.
“It’s a lower cost solution that we hope will have a really big impact. We know we’ve talked to our counterparts in these states that have implemented and developed this type of proposals before. They’ve had some good success with it. We think it’s worth trying here in Danbury. We are looking forward to seeing how those conversations shape out and how maybe if it’s successful in Danbury, we could look to potentially do something like this in other parts of the state,” Morgan said.
“It’s one of the things our residents are the most vocal about,” said Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves. “We all live it. We have to see it and, since we’ve been here, we’ve certainly advocated for improvements both practical and long-term. Anybody who wants to come down on I-84 on this side of the state in those peak times, they can see how bad it really is. We’re glad that there’s some shorter-term solutions while a longer-term fix is planned.”
Alves said traffic concerns have been on top of his mind since his administration took office in Danbury.
“I’d love to be able to speed up timelines and get real changes done on Interstate 84 here at the Connecticut/New York border. The short-term fix is these flex lanes, and I think it’s really going to ease traffic as plans are made for more permanent fixes,” Alves said.
As far as long-term solutions for the congestion, Alves said the city has identified troubled areas.
“It’s not just one thing. There are some identified areas where we have some left-handed exits that may be also adding to traffic and may cause more accidents. A real additional lane that’s open all the time would help, so you’re not going from three to two lanes to certain choke points would also help,” Alves said.
He also added that enhanced public transportation, including continued investment into the rail systems, would help get people off the roads.
“I applaud the governor and his team for making investments all over the state,” Alves said. “We just got to be a little bit more aggressive, I believe, and how we do it and make it a broader plan throughout the entire state, like the Danbury Line into the New Haven Line. It encourages folks to get off the highways and take that train down to Stamford, take that train to Norwalk, Westchester, New York City, and make those options reliable, fast and accessible, and it would help alleviate the traffic on the roads. You see that all over the world, examples of that. In Connecticut, we started it. We just have to do more of it.”
Cohen said she doesn’t represent Danbury, but she grew up in Ridgefield and understands the traffic concerns in Danbury.
“These flex lanes or dynamic lanes as they’re called really have the ability to match the capacity to when and where the demand exists for it,” Cohen said. “If we know that congestion occurs at a certain time and there’s bottlenecks as a result, then we can add that lane during those peak times and really improve people’s quality of life.
“We just want to make sure that there’s more predictability in their drive so that we’re kind of smoothing out that congestion or those bottlenecks and reducing the incidence so that folks can get to where they need to be faster, not speedier but more efficiently,” she said.
Cohen said the timeline for passing legislation depends on the bill and the amount of push back. For example, the increased penalties for hands-free violations in work zones may take longer because it may have to be referred to the Judiciary Committee.
“I’m pleased with what the DOT is proposing, and it’s not unusual for them to propose safety mechanisms such as increased penalties for reckless driving or driving recklessly at high speeds in work zones. It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out in this session,” Cohen said.
“Timing is dependent on a number of things and it’s hard to predict. But I will say, generally speaking, folks want our roadways to be safer,” she added. “We’re seeing the results of our good work over the past few years with a lower incidence of crashes and fatalities on our roadways.”