Fatal Crash Brings Attention to Speeding on Litchfield Turnpike

Woodbridge Police are investigating a fatal accident that took place on the Litchfield Turnpike near the intersection of Bond Road last week. The accident happened at 4:37 p.m. on April 26. Police, fire and emergency personnel responded to the scene of the head-on collision.

According to police reports, both drivers were the only occupants in their vehicles. The driver of a Honda Civic, Alvaro Nava-Perez of New Haven was brought to the Hospital of Saint Raphael, where he succumbed to his injuries. Police say his car crossed the center line of the road and hit another car, driven by Christine Patafio, also of New Haven. She was treated and released from Yale-New Haven Hospital.

The accident prompted Maralyn Klatzkin, a resident of Bond Road, to appeal to the Woodbridge Police Commission last evening.

“The speed at which people travel is absolutely inappropriate,” she says.

Though police have not identified speed as a factor in last week’s accident, they do admit that drivers speed on the Litchfield Turnpike.

Chief of Police Eugene Marcucci told Klatzkin the department would put a machine that measures speed on Bond Road.

“I hear the cars going by and I gasp. We need some kind of plan to slow the drivers down,” she says.

According to Klatzkin, cars coming off of Litchfield Turnpike speed up her road. Marcucci said he’d continue to look at what can be done to encourage drivers to slow down on the Litchfield Turnpike.

“It goes from 35 miles per hour to 45 miles per hour on that road,” he says. Police continue to investigate the accident that claimed the life of a New Haven man on the Litchfield Turnpike.