Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell has ordered new signs warning of steep grades on westbound Route 44 at Avon Mountain, after a dump truck accident in the area claimed the lives of four people.
On July 29, a 12-wheeled dump truck owned by American Crushing and Recycling careened down Avon Mountain on Route 44 and slammed into cars waiting at the intersection with Route 10. Twenty people were injured and four people were killed, including the truck’s driver, AbdulraheemNaafi, also known as Terrance R. Stokes.
On Wednesday, Aug. 17, Rell told the state’s transportation commissioner to install new warning signs on Avon’s summit, in the area immediately before the steep 10 percent grade descent to the bottom of the mountain, where the accident occurred, the Hartford Courant reported.
“I am asking that new signs be posted along Route 44 so that truckers – and all drivers for that matter – have the earliest warning possible about the steepness of that road and get everyone to simply slow down,” Rell said in a written statement.
Rell has already ordered the state’s Department of Safety to compile and publish a list of the top 25 safety violators in the state. Judd Everheart, a spokesperson for the governor, told Land Line that the move was in response to a heightened sensitivity from the public from the accident.
“The governor was concerned, in the wake of what can only be described as a horrific accident … that every step be taken to ensure total compliance with Connecticut’s truck safety laws,” Everheart said. “She directed the Department of Motor Vehicles to develop a list of the 25 companies that had the most violations over the past year, and sent out teams of inspectors to ensure compliance.”
The accident has also stirred the political fires in the state as well, Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, and Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, have asked the Republican Rell to keep weigh stations open for 12 hours a day, as well as look into the possibility of widening the roadway and adding runaway truck areas.
“The governor has been very vocal recently on the issue of truck safety in Connecticut,” McDonald told Newsday. “Unfortunately, the measures taken by the Rell administration so far … address only a fraction of the truck traffic that exists on the roads of our state.”
A few days after the fatal wreck the governor ordered an investigation of the company that owned the dump truck.
Investigators have not yet determined what caused Naafi to hit the other vehicles. However, Department of Transportation records show that inspectors had found five brake violations on the truck during past inspections. All of the problems were corrected, according to Newsday.
American Crushing and Recycling, the company that owned the truck, also had 448 mechanical violations between 1994 and 2001 while operating as Wilcox Trucking. The company changed names after the state Department of Motor Vehicles suspended the registrations of 16 of its trucks because they failed to comply with a number of repair orders, a DMV spokesperson told Newsday.
Despite a number of violations, the company was not in the top 25 list of violators in the state.
“This was an individual truck, owned by one company that has had a number of violations over the years, but was not in the top 25. It was close – it was in the 30s,” Everheart said.
“It just highlights the fact that truck safety has to be an ongoing effort every day of the week, every day of the year. The governor is determined to make sure that compliance is guaranteed.”
Naafi’s own history is also being questioned in the investigation. The accident occurred just two days after he began working for American Crushing and Recycling – the day after he was fired from another trucking company partially because he could not operate the truck’s transmission, Newsday reported.
Under a third, unreleased name, Naafi had a criminal record that included a robbery conviction.
– By Aaron Ladage, staff writer
aaron_ladage@landlinemag.com
