SOUTHINGTON, CT - A possible illegal alien from Brazil was nabbed on Interstate 84 in Southington, CT last week going over 110 mph in a 65 mph zone after Connecticut State Police clocked him on laser, police said, according to the Hartford Courant.
On October 3 at approximately 10:00 p.m., a trooper conducting speed enforcement on I-84 westbound in the area of Exit 32 spotted a gray Toyota Corolla going 113 mph. The trooper stopped the vehicle and found the operator to be Avila Carvalho De, 19, whose address was not disclosed.
When the trooper asked him if he knew how fast he was going, Carvalho De did not respond. When asked where he was coming from, he said Brazil, CSP said.
The trooper noticed Carvalho De was showing signs of alcohol impairment and subjected him to field sobriety tests, which he failed. Carvalho De was placed under arrest and taken to Troop H in Hartford, a state police spokesperson said.
He was charged with reckless driving and operating under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. He was released on a $5,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in New Britain Superior Court on Oct. 29.
His arrest comes as Connecticut's highways have begun to resemble the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where driving down the road becomes an exercise in watching out for excessive speed, abrupt lane changes, and racing. And that is reflected in motor vehicle fatality statistics.
According to the CT Mirror, 224 fatal crashes were reported on Connecticut roadways as of August 31. It has gotten so bad that the Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) has started publishing fatality figures on highway message boards.
“We decided to start posting the number of fatalities on the signs because we wanted to put that number directly in front of the drivers,” said Josh Morgan, a DOT spokesman. “We see these numbers every week, and they keep increasing. Our goal is to make the public aware of the ongoing crisis.”
“Every week, see five more people were killed, eight more people were killed,” Morgan said. “We want the public to see that on their commute to work or school or to visit friends or family.”
The University of Connecticut’s Crash Data Repository shows an alarming rise in fatal car crashes this year, with a majority involving young male drivers. Of the 148 deaths in 137 fatal car crashes examined by UConn, drivers accounted for 65.5% of the fatalities, passengers for 14.9%, and pedestrians for 19.6%. The most affected age range is between 20 and 25 years old.
Morgan noted that driving habits are a primary cause of fatalities on Connecticut’s roadways, as evidenced by Carvalho De’s arrest.
“So many drivers are acting selfishly and irresponsibly, causing people to lose their lives on Connecticut roads,” he said. “We want to keep this number up there so people who are out there on the roads can see it and take notice of what’s happening in Connecticut.”
Aside from crazy drivers, the number of wrong-way crashes on Connecticut highways has also spiked over the past few years. As of May, eleven deaths were attributed to wrong-way highway crashes in Connecticut, which already surpassed the number from 2023, according to CT Insider.
One crash on the Merritt Parkway (Rte 15) in Stratford saw four people killed, including the wrong-way driver. Those killed included three members of the same family driving back from Yale-New Haven Hospital, and the wrong-way driver was a Fairfield University student driving home to Massachusetts.
It wasn’t until a state lawmaker was killed in a wrong-way crash that legislators in Connecticut took action. CT Insider wrote that after the death of State Rep. Quintin WIlliams, they mandated the CT DOT to install countermeasures and police notification systems on at least 120 “high-risk” exit ramps, in addition to establishing a pilot program to detect wrong-way drivers and send warnings to nearby drivers using highway message boards.
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