Latest news with #MarkMunroe
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
State says NH roads getting deadlier by the day
Deadly driving crashes continue to rise across New Hampshire with 2025 already outpacing last year, when 135 roadway deaths marked a 6% increase overall and young driver deaths spiked at an alarming rate, transportation officials said. As of Monday morning, 45 people had died in crashes across the state since Jan. 1, according to Mark Munroe, highway safety program manager for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. Yearly traffic deaths have been trending up since 104 people died in crashes in 2020. In 2024, deaths among drivers age 16 to 21 more than doubled, with 10 fatalities. Most recently, a teen was killed in a motor vehicle incident in Bedford Sunday night. Details of that incident have not been released. So far this year, four drivers under 21 have died, compared with three over the same time period last year. There's been an even bigger spike in deaths among drivers over 70 — 11 deaths, nearly double for that age range, Munroe said. To address the number of roadway deaths, last year the state relaunched a program called Driving Toward Zero, which aims to reduce traffic fatalities by 50% by 2030. This past February, 75 first responders, safety, transportation, health and municipal officials held a Traffic Fatality Summit aimed at curbing the trend. Munroe could not be reached for further comment Tuesday afternoon, but said in late February he had never seen anything like the deadly trends across the state in his 40 years working in public safety. Both Munroe and State Police Lt. Chris Storm have repeatedly voiced concern and frustration with the deadly trends they're seeing. New laws considered This year, legislators have considered three bills addressing recent dangerous driving trends. None have passed so far. HB 466 would have made it so anyone who refuses to take a blood-alcohol test loses their license for a year. Representatives killed that bill and a similar state Senate bill. HB 482 would have raised the fine for driving over 100 mph to $750 on the first offense with a 90-day license suspension. The state Senate tabled the bill last month. However, the House and Senate are working on similar legislation. HB 776 would add wrong-way driving to the list of factors that elevate driving while intoxicated or impaired to aggravated DWI, which has stiffer penalties. State Police said there were 271 wrong-way drivers reported in 2024. The bill passed both the House and Senate and is awaiting a conference committee after it was amended by the Senate. More statistics Of the 45 people killed this year, 26 were drivers, eight were not wearing a seat belt, six were pedestrians and eight were on motorcycles. The number of pedestrians killed is double what it was at this time last year. dpierce@
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
New Hampshire roads getting deadlier by the day, state says
Deadly driving crashes continue to rise across New Hampshire with 2025 already outpacing last year, when 135 roadway deaths marked a 6% increase overall and young driver deaths spiked at an alarming rate, transportation officials said. As of Monday morning, 45 people had died in crashes across the state since Jan. 1, according to Mark Munroe, highway safety program manager for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. Yearly traffic deaths have been trending up since 104 people died in crashes in 2020. In 2024, death among drivers age 16 to 21 more than doubled, with 10 fatalities. Most recently, a teen was killed in a motor vehicle incident in Bedford Sunday night. Details of that incident have not been released. So far this year, four drivers under 21 have died, compared with three over the same time period last year. There's been an even bigger spike in deaths among drivers over 70 — 11 deaths, nearly double for that age range, Munroe said. To address the number of roadway deaths, last year the state relaunched a program called Driving Toward Zero, which aims to reduce traffic fatalities by 50% by 2030. This past February, 75 first responders, safety, transportation, health and municipal officials held a Traffic Fatality Summit aimed at curbing the trend. Munroe could not be reached for further comment Tuesday afternoon, but said in late February he had never seen anything like the deadly trends across the state in his 40 years working in public safety. Both Munroe and State Police Lt. Chris Storm have repeatedly voiced concern and frustration with the deadly trends they're seeing. New laws considered This year, legislators have considered three bills addressing recent dangerous driving trends. None have passed so far. HB 466 would have made it so anyone who refuses to take a blood-alcohol test loses their license for a year. Representatives killed that bill and a similar state Senate bill. HB 482 would have raised the fine for driving over 100 mph to $750 on the first offense with a 90-day license suspension. The state Senate tabled the bill last month. However, the House and Senate are working on similar legislation. HB 776 would add wrong-way driving to the list of factors that elevate driving while intoxicated or impaired to aggravated DWI, which has stiffer penalties. State Police said there were 271 wrong-way drivers reported in 2024. The bill passed both the House and Senate and is awaiting a conference committee after it was amended by the Senate. More statistics Of the 45 people killed this year, 26 were drivers, eight were not wearing a seatbelt, six were pedestrians and eight were on motorcycles. The number of pedestrians killed is double what it was at this time last year. dpierce@
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Yahoo
NH looks for new ways to prevent traffic deaths
Feb. 24—Mark Munroe has worked in public safety for 40 years, but he had never seen the number of preventable traffic deaths like he saw in 2024. "This is absolutely crazy," Munroe, a state highway safety program manager, said during Monday's New Hampshire Traffic Fatality Summit. "Every time we came into the office on Monday morning last summer, my coworkers, we were like, 'How many more were killed this weekend?'" In 2024, 135 people died after crashes on New Hampshire roads, a 6% increase from the year before. So far this year, 11 people have died in crashes. The number of traffic deaths has been trending up since 104 people died in crashes in 2020. To the more than 75 first responders, safety, transportation, health and municipal officials gathered in Concord on Monday, that's simply unacceptable. "The state, collectively, every agency, we wrote about 40,000 speeding tickets last year," State Police Lt. Chris Storm said. "As far as DWI goes, we arrested about 3,500 DWIs across the across the board for all of our agencies in New Hampshire (in 2024). So, both of those are down from about 10 years ago. But everybody knows again, we have limited resources, limited people out there and some changes that are going on." Much of the forum focused on coordinating safety measures through enforcing laws, collecting more complete crash data (and doing so faster), collaborating across state and local agencies, educating the public and enacting new laws with stiffer penalties. But everything came back to one simple notion: All humans make mistakes, officials said. No matter how invincible drivers feel in their comfy, multimedia-laden, road-noise-reducing highway cruisers with sizable blind spots, danger abounds and all drivers are culpable. You're driving a 3,000-pound or heavier killing machine that's built to lull you into delusions of grandeur while making exceeding 100 mph feel like going 50, officials said. "As long as you have people who can decide how fast they can go and you have cars that can go 140 mph, you're going to have people who go 140 mph. That's human nature," New Hampshire Highway Safety Administrator William Lambert said. Why so many crashes? The rise in traffic deaths since 2020 has everyone from elected officials to health care professionals concerned. The simplest explanations are usually impaired driving, speeding or distracted driving. Inattention is the No. 1 cause of all crashes in the state, officials said. But under the distracted-driving umbrella there are several factors beyond the common perception of younger drivers texting and speeding. Although there was a 233% rise in deaths among drivers 16 to 21 in 2024 (to a total of 10), that leaves 125 drivers who died despite being more experienced or having a perceived mastery of the road and knowledge of the law. Distracted driving also means talking on a cellphone (even hands-free), listening to music, concentrating on GPS driving directions, talking to other people in the car, or even momentarily taking your eyes off the road. And everyone gets distracted while driving, officials said. Would new laws help? Storm and state safety officials are pushing for multiple pieces of legislation, including stiffer penalties for reckless and distracted driving as well as speeding. "Right now, we are currently working on several different bills," Storm said. "One is House Bill 42, (with) which we're trying to increase the penalties for people that are traveling over 100 mph." Speeding and a rash of wrong-way drivers continue to exasperate police, Storm said. "We've had a 230% increase from 2018 to 2024 in people traveling over 100 mph that are caught with the (State Police patrol aircraft) airplane. So, we've got to fix this problem." State Police Sgt. Brian Ross said there should also be a mandatory minimum time in prison for drivers who kill someone. "I'm seeing a big uptick throughout the state in convictions for negligent homicide, where individuals who weren't intoxicated or impaired by substances aren't seeing any jail time. It's all suspended jail time," Ross said. "If you commit a homicide, if you shoot someone with a gun, or whatever the case may be, there would be prison time for that. "So, I think we need a culture change just as far as being behind the wheel of the motor vehicle if you end up hitting and killing someone, whether you're impaired or not, there should be some kind of minimum mandatory jail time in my eyes for that." dpierce@
