The motorist who snapped the stabilizing wire on a Smith Ridge Road utility pole on Sunday afternoon, triggering a major power outage in New Canaan, is a 50-year-old Greenwich man who may have fallen asleep at the wheel, officials say.
Traveling southbound on Smith Ridge Road just past Canoe Hill, this vehicle crossed over the oncoming traffic lane and went through the stone wall into Hannan Field. On its journey, the vehicle effectively knocked a pole-mount transformer out of place, causing more than 1,000 homes in New Canaan to lose power. The Greenwich man who was driving the car told police he may have fallen asleep. Credit: Michael Dinan
At about 4:44 p.m., New Canaan Police were dispatched to the area of 364 Smith Ridge Road on a report that a vehicle had traveled off of the roadway, crashing into a rock wall and striking the guy-wire, according to a police report.
The man had been traveling southbound on Route 123 and couldn’t recall why he traveled off of the roadway other than he may have fallen asleep while driving, the report said.
His car could be seen at rest in Hannan Field near Twin Pond Lane on Sunday evening. No other vehicles were involved and the man was not seriously hurt, officials said.
Police charged him with reckless driving and also cited the man for failure to drive in the right-hand lane.
He was released on $240 bond and scheduled to appear May 4 in state Superior Court in Norwalk.
The crash caused the guy-wire to flip up into a pole-mount transformer, which blew—causing about 1,600 New Canaan homes to lose power at the height of outage, officials have said. Eversource had power nearly completely restored within three hours.
What about “seeing no cars ahead, texting and missing the slight curve in the road”? I drive this road at least twice a day and this explanation seems more likely than falling asleep.