Byrne has sent out an impassioned e-mail to both local and state officials. The e-mail begins: "I am writing to urge you to procure for the Town of Greenwich Fire Department a truck-mounted crash cushion that we see in use whenever state highway workers are on any of our highways. The need is immediate and the safety of both our emergency responders and the driving public demand that we react."

Byrne's son, Dan, is a volunteer firefighter for the Sound Beach Fire Dept. He was on the scene on Sept. 30 - the morning of a double accident on I-95 that claimed two lives and injured two others. He was at work putting out the car fire after a Massachusetts driver had plowed into a disabled Lexus parked on the shoulder of I-95 near Exit 5.

That same early morning, Tom Byrne and two other sons were headed for I-95 southbound to New York for the Tunnel-to-Towers 5K run to honor a NYC firefighter who died on 9/11, after running through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to help out at Ground Zero on his day off.

By the time the Byrne family entered Exit 5 northbound, the second accident had occurred when a driver crossed into the cordoned-off first accident scene straight into his son's Cos Cob Fire Patrol Truck, parked across two lanes to protect the emergency workers. The collision killed the driver and a passenger, and critically injured a third. No emergency responders were hurt.

But what Byrne saw that morning had filled him with dread for his son. "We witnessed complete chaos breaking out on the northbound side of I-95. There were no police to direct cars off the highway at Exit 4," his e-mail continued, "even though the road was completely shut down just about a mile past that exit. The cars that found themselves now stuck on the Mianus Bridge and immediately prior to it began backing up while cars from the west continued to speed toward the accident scene."

"That e-mail," explained Byrne, "was about not having crash support protection to protect our emergency personnel. For the municipal responders, there was no protection of firefighters on the other side where they were exposed. A year ago, the same thing happened, the same Cos Cob Fire Patrol truck serving as protection. Someone slammed into it and was killed. When are we going to say enough is enough?

"That truck was put out of service for months," Byrne said. "Using a fire truck as a crash vehicle is absurd. It's dangerous and costly. The solution should be for the state to pay for one. I want them to give us a truck to be an appropriate traffic barrier. A truck-attenuated system goes on the back of trucks - it absorbs energy of collision like an air bag. I want us to get something that's designed to be a crash protection barrier."

"We have 144 impact attenuation vehicles - those orange dump trucks with big metal barriers behind them," said Kevin Nursick, spokesman for the Department of Transportation (DOT). "The barriers attached to their back attenuate any impact. The metal barriers are large and heavy and need a heavy vehicle to move them and utilize them.

"They are used to maintain or assist with project lane closures, accident or incident, and to protect our staff on our sites. They are also used for heavy maintenance and heavy traffic flow."

His response to Byrne's request: "There are 169 towns (in Connecticut), and we can't provide them for each town. We don't have the staffing.

"They are not automatically dispatched by DOT on the roadway as there are dozens of incidents on the highway. If first responders request, we can come to the scene of the crash.

"While the (Sept. 30) incident is under investigation, it's my understanding that we were not called after the vehicle had hit. It's up to the first responder to make the call."

"We didn't have time to bring in auxiliary trucks," said Lt. J. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police.

"Even if we called for them, it would have taken a significant amount of time for them to respond. We had an illuminated patrol car at the scene. This crash happened at a protected scene," he said, and "whatever we had out there it (the accident) probably would have happened."

Brian Kelly directs volunteer recruitment for the Greenwich Fire Dept. and he has experienced what it's like to be hit by a car while sitting in the Cos Cob Fire Patrol Truck - the same one involved in the Sept. 30 fatal accident. Kelly walked away with only a stiff neck and sore back a year ago last Labor Day after a car spun out of control and hit Kelly's truck.

"We would not have been hit last year," he said, "if we were allowed to have a state sand truck near us or use our town sand trucks.

"In a perfect world," said Kelly, "we would be able to have those town trucks." But apparently not, he said, until the state allows them on the highway. "Our drivers would be doing the state's work, so some money would have to change hands."

What saves his colleagues lives in such situations, said Kelly, was their training. "It's setting up those flare patterns on the thruway. It's working in pairs. We're trained to have one eye on the traffic and another on what we're doing."

Dan Warzoha, a former fire chief and a volunteer firefighter since age 16, is now the Town's emergency management operations coordinator. He suggests using Greenwich's aerial ladder truck as a stopgap protective barrier at highway accident scenes.

"New York City does it all the time," Warzoha said. "If anything gets hit, the aerial ladder gets hit. They can close down a couple of lanes with a ladder truck."

New Fire Chief Peter Siecienski, who was on Byrne's e-mail list, is for "anything that we can do for firefighting safety," he said. But he wants to wait and see what his department's evaluation of the Sept. 30 accident reveals.

"The better option was that that truck was not in that position," he said.

"Mr. Byrne wants the state to obtain (a truck-mounted attenuator), but in reality we don't have the staff to respond."

And if the state won't fund it? "The Town could consider funding it as a capital expenditure. But you need to plan for this. And our budgeting system is proactive rather than reactive."

"The idea Tom Byrne is proposing," said First Selectman Jim Lash, "to have another vehicle is worth looking at. We're going to look at what the state has to tell us. But the vehicle chosen (Cos Cob Fire Patrol Truck) performed as it was designed to perform and protected the workers."

"There are so many issues here," said Byrne. "But my main concern here is the safety of my son. Something's got to be put there to protect him from these crazy drivers. We have to have real protection - if the state won't provide it, then the town will have to. I've been passive long enough."