N.J. warns against walking on highways

WOODBRIDGE, N.J. - Carlos Grijalva Florian drank a bottle of Johnnie Walker and three beers before his cousin picked him up. He was belligerent in the car, and when his cousin pulled over on the New Jersey Turnpike in South Brunswick to let him cool off, Grijalva Florian got out and started walking on the highway.

Soon after, a bus and a tractor trailer hit him, leaving blood and flesh strewn across the road and in the undercarriage of the truck.

Grijalva Florian, killed Feb. 20, is one of four people to die this year walking on the turnpike or the Garden State Parkway, the state's busiest highways. The death toll is already equal to last year's.

To fight the problem, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority has launched a public-awareness campaign, urging motorists to stay in their cars if they pull over on the two roadways.

Warnings are being posted on electronic message boards along the highways, agency spokesman Joe Orlando said. In the next few weeks, toll plazas and rest stops will have signs, fliers, or posters with similar warnings.

It's not new for people to walk on the turnpike and parkway, which carry two million vehicles a day, said Orlando. He attributed the deaths to "bad luck and a bad trend."

"We still have a lot of people who just think they're going to run from one end of the roadway to another," he said.

At least three of this year's victims had left cars, according to police and accident reports.

Barry Gillman of East Brunswick pulled his 2003 black Acura to the side of the turnpike March 5 between Cranbury and Hightstown, then got out. Authorities believe the car was accidentally put in reverse and drifted onto the highway.

Gillman, 65, followed it into the lane, where a tractor trailer hit him.

Another victim, James Kent of Brick, pulled over on the Garden State Parkway after a crash in Essex County. The 27-year-old left his car, jumped over the center divide, and was sitting or kneeling in the left lane when a sedan hit him. It was dark and raining.

A few weeks earlier, Grijalva Florian, 28, was riding with a cousin and a friend to Boston for a Guatemalan festival. His cousin picked him up in Towson, Md., the Baltimore suburb where Grijalva Florian lived.

In the car, Grijalva Florian started to choke his cousin and punch their friend, and he took the friend's baseball hat. His cousin pulled to the shoulder of the turnpike to calm him, but Grijalva Florian took off his shirt and shoes and left the car. He refused to get back in.

At 9:40 p.m., police were notified of a shirtless man walking on the turnpike. Grijalva Florian was killed soon after.

A bus chartered by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra hit him first. Investigators later found blood splattered across the front of the bus, and a three-foot-long dent above a damaged headlight.

"It was unbelievable," said Darryl Kubian, a passenger on the bus. "It's one of those things you don't forget. It's one of those things you wish didn't happen."