A driver was killed in Fairfield on Wednesday night after hitting a tractor-trailer parked in the shoulder of the entrance ramp to a rest area, according to state police.
This is the second fatal crash in the last two weeks in which a passenger car from the highway hit a tractor-trailer parked in a rest area in Fairfield.
Police said Joseph Pierson, 40, of Stamford, crossed from the center lane of Interstate 95 onto the entrance ramp for the southbound rest area near exit 21 just before 10 p.m. and hit the back of a tractor-trailer that was parked in a no-parking area.
Then he hit the driver's side of a car that was traveling on the ramp to the rest area, police said.
When firefighters arrived, they found Pierson deceased in the Nissan Sentra.
The truck driver, Joseph Eutsey, 39, of Middletown, New York, told police he had parked the truck so he could take a break in the sleeper section of the vehicle, according to the police release.
Eutsey and the other driver who were hit were not injured, according to police.
On Dec. 1, a tractor-trailer driver sleeping in the truck in the rest area on the northbound side of the highway was killed when a Toyota Corolla lost control while exiting Interstate 95 in Fairfield, rolled over and went into the right shoulder, striking the truck, according to officials.
State police are investigating both crashes.
Photo Credit: Fairfield Fire Department