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Originally Posted by sanddrag
But I'm wondering if you could explain a little more just how lives were lost at the fault of tolls. Thanks.
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What Elgin was referring to was a major accident on I95 many years ago............before I lived in this state.
A tractor trailer failed to stop and plowed into a toll both taking out the vehicles in front of it before taking out the toll both itself. I don't know how many died. I'm not sure if the truck driver survived but people in the vehicles and some of the ones in the toll both itself collecting the money didn't. Shortly after that the state of CT ordered all toll booths removed.
CT is known to do things like this. Just this past July there was a major accident on Avon mountain where a fully loaded 2001 Mack dump truck (tri-axle) lost control going down the mountain and plowed through 19 cars and 1 bus at the base of the hill that were waiting at a traffic light. It was a miracle that only 3 people died although several are still going through rehab. One of the guys I work with, his wife was on that bus and he got the call at work (she's alright now). The truck was overweight and in the process of descending a 1 1/2 mile hill it burned out the brakes then the driver tried to downshift and blew the transmission. They found pieces of the brakes and transmission going down the hill. The only control the driver had left was steering before he plowed into the vehicles at 80+ mph.
After this the state stepped up truck inspections after finding that this dump truck carried no insurance plus it was pulled over and taken out of service on several occasions because of faulty brakes and other equipment. There's much more to this story including the company that owned the truck but I won't go into that.