Conn. Opens Runaway Truck Ramp on Avon Mountain

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Connecticut transportation officials have opened a runaway truck ramp at a dangerous hilly intersection – more than two years after a fatal wreck and five months after a second crash.

Work on the $2.8 million ramp on Route 44 in Avon, Conn. began in November and is the first such ramp built in Connecticut, according to acting Transportation Commissioner Emil Frankel. Gov. M. Jodi Rell ordered safety measures in the area after a tractor-trailer lost its brakes and slammed into a furniture store in September. No one was seriously injured.

However, four people were killed in July 2005 when an out-of-control dump truck barreled into the same intersection and hit several vehicles, including a commuter bus.

The ramp includes retaining wall, a concrete barrier curb and a system of fiber nets designed to safely stop a truck.