The 10 worst intersections in New Hampshire cause car accidents and stress. Their location may surprise you.
When our camera crew visited these sites, people who drive here confirmed accidents at these locations. Two bicyclists said they avoid one of the intersections or need patience to wait for heavy traffic. One bicyclist we spoke to observed that at one oddly shaped intersection it is “every man for himself”.
Some people like rotaries. Others hate them. At the same time if you locate traffic circles near race tracks they become speedways.
Concord, capital of the Granite state, hosts 2 of the worst intersections in the state. Unsurprisingly, Manchester, largest city in New Hampshire sees 2 within its borders.
Two traffic circles make the list of the 10 worst intersections in the Granite State. Some highway engineers point to distinctions between a traffic circle, a rotary and a roundabout. And to be sure there are variations in signage, the way traffic enters and exits, the number of lanes and other features. For example, in recent years designers started constructing raised circular centers to slow down traffic and to create one lane of circular traffic while leaving extra room for 18-wheelers to safely navigate through the traffic feature.
People either love or hate rotaries. True, some say, you don’t have to stop and wait like you do at traffic lights. On the other hand the unregulated in and out often leads to a cowboy-like feeling of lawlessness as some barge in and out in total disregard for others.
The New Hampshire statehouse sits squarely in the center of Concord. The state capital and many buildings hosting state agencies and other functions dot Concord. At the same time Concord is home to commuters who drive in and around two of the top ten worst intersections in the state. Interstates 93 and 89 handle traffic in and around the capital city. Yet, the actual highway footage making up those major roads do not host the designation as top ten, although the accident sites are within a stone’s throw.
In a “Strategic Highway Safety Plan” researchers looked at ways to reduce the number of fatalities and serious injury crashes in the New Hampshire highway system. The numbers showed a rate of 1.5 fatalities per 100 million miles travelled on the roads nationwide. At the same time, that number on New Hampshire roads came in at 1.13 fatalities per 100 million miles travelled in the state. Imagine staying up late doing the math on that one.
Number crunchers set a goal to reduce the above number down to one. And while the New Hampshire number was less than the national number it had been stagnant for years showing no downward trend. That, officials felt, represents an unacceptable reality due to highway crashes:
The devastation it brings to a family and the human suffering are immeasurable, and the economic cost of crashes in New Hampshire is estimated to be over $1 billion per year.”
New Hampshire Strategic Highway Safety Plan
Obtaining better crash data topped the list of goals for reducing highway crashes. Other goals included getting more people to use seat belts, improve driver safety among teens and the elderly, reduce lane switching and figure a way to stop reckless driving behavior. Impaired driving leads to tragedy on the roads. So, researchers in the study hoped to adopt measures to reduce impaired driving.
Without laying out specifics, researchers in the above plan felt addressing “special users” important in the effort to reduce crashes. Special users include motorcyclists, pedestrians, bicyclists and commercial vehicles.
Improving emergency medical services provides the final piece of the puzzle in the stated effort to reduce accidents.
17,029 miles of roads criss cross New Hampshire. The state maintains 28% of those roads, or 4,814 miles. Cities and towns take care of 72% or 12,215 miles. Representing one of the smaller states, New Hampshire plays host to only 225 miles of interstate highway. Those miles come in as part of the state-maintained highway system.
How do you improve old roadways?
Our “About the Law” hosts and special guest, all of whom drive the roads a great deal, agree New Hampshire’s roads represent old thoroughfares. Old roads, we agreed, that present a challenge to drivers and highway engineers who face the job of making them better. At the same time some officials claim much can be done to improve highway safety.
Such efforts to kick up road safety include improving the visibility of road signs and pavement markings. The size and color of signs and markings either make or break visibility. Modification could help everyone but especially older drivers and others with visual impairments.
Intersections such as those referred to in our top ten list present a particular problem and could benefit from adding left-turn lanes and left-turn traffic signals. Highway safety engineers in one study claimed a 13 percent reduction in injury crashes through intersection modifications like those mentioned above.
What makes the roads so dangerous?
Is it the roads themselves or the drivers who make the intersections dangerous? Our two hosts and our guest agreed that although the roads can present challenges, drivers make the intersections as bad as they are. Our guest joked that he thought new cars are coming out with only one pedal, the gas pedal, inferring that no one breaks for anyone else.
A 2023 study reported police issued 40,945 speeding citations in one year. The most recent reporting year, 2021, also saw 3,975 impaired driving arrests in New Hampshire.
The 2023 report cited 28,092 total crashes in the focus year. 118 people were killed in 106 accidents. Speeding factored into 51 of the fatalities. 51 of those killed in accidents failed to wear seat belts.
Number crunchers conclude that speeding, impairment and failure to wear seat belts factored in many if not most New Hampshire traffic fatalities.
“Since 2020, alcohol sales have increased by 50% in NH and the drug epidemic overdose numbers continue to not let up (417 overdoses in 2020).”
New Hampshire Office of Highway Safety, Highway Safety Plan, FFY 2023, p. 49.
Most likely, as a result, impairment from all sources lies behind many accidents, injuries and fatalities. Speeding, distracted driving and other driver failures also top the list of accident factors. So, some of the intersections viewed in our “top ten” list surely challenge drivers. But is it the roads or the drivers that actually cause accidents?
About the Law: Suing the Bad Driver Suing the Road
OK, you can’t sue a road. At the same time, people who have had loved ones killed in car accidents have brought legal action against the cities and states responsible for maintaining the roads. To be certain, sometimes these actions succeeds. More often they do not.
In our “About the Law” discussion we look at two cases. In the first, an accident at Manchester’s Wellington Road and “Bypass 28” killed a man when a driver blew a stop sign on Wellington. The family of the fatal accident victim sued the City of Manchester claiming officials knew about the dangerous intersection but failed to take action. The City considered putting in larger signs and blinking red and yellow traffic lights, but failed to do so. Manchester alerted the state to the danger, the state did nothing, so the state was brought into the suit. But the NH Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of claims against both the City and State. The court held that whether to act or not to act in this situation represents a “discretionary function”. In the end, governments are immune from liability for discretionary decision making.
In a Rochester, New Hampshire intersection fatality the NH Supreme Court included recognition that the accident took place at a “dangerous intersection”. However, the analysis focused on the conduct of the driver who ran a stop sign, holding him 100% percent at fault for the accident.
Bad intersections or bad drivers?
Accident statistics confirm the 10 intersections we focus on here do in fact see accidents. And highway officials continue to generate studies about what makes them dangerous and how to prevent calamity. But as long as drivers fail to pay attention, drive impaired, speed and otherwise act negligently, the best most perfect intersection in the world may or may not see more accidents.
This episode of About the Law focused on the 10 worst intersections in New Hampshire. If you think these are bad, check out the 10 worst intersections in Massachusetts.
Do more people need driver assistance technologies in their vehicles? Or do they just need to pay attention?
Here is the transcript for this episode of About the Law:
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:14:05
Hi, I’m Laney Law and I’m attorney Andrew Myers. Today, we’re going to be discussing the ten worst intersections in New Hampshire.
00:00:14:07 – 00:00:44:21
I’m standing at the worst intersection in the entire state of New Hampshire. That is according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. Their accident statistics statewide in New Hampshire were crunched by both Business Insider and by Time magazine. They came up with a list of the ten worst intersections in the entire state of New Hampshire.
00:00:44:23 – 00:01:11:12
And this is number one. Where am I? Hang on. We’ll tell you. So today we have a special guest with us. Today we have Ron. Oh, Ron Bath. Yes. Ron was a TV photographer in New Hampshire and in Boston. And Ron knows the roads fairly well because if he was out covering something and there was all of a sudden some spot news, he had to run there really quickly.
00:01:11:12 – 00:01:31:28
So. Ron, welcome. Andy, how you doing? I’m good. I’m good. I’m good. We’re just hanging out, talking about the ten worst intersections in New Hampshire. And I’m going to, in a little bit get to the fact that the law addresses this. But how do the courts look at it when you have an accident in a bad intersection? But first.
00:01:32:05 – 00:01:58:06
Ron, do you have a worst intersection that you’ve dealt with? Actually, yeah, I think I believe it’s one of the worst I’ve ever come across. And I live like just feet from it, actually. Here, Manchester. And we have a big traffic circle which the Amoskeag traffic circle exits takes up to 93. Oh yeah. That’s right by the Merrimack River.
00:01:58:06 – 00:02:29:24
And there’s an exit from I 93 and people are coming across the bridge. Nobody knows where they’re going because they don’t know whether they’re going to the east side or the west side. Is that the one? Well, I’ll tell you right now, though, people don’t realize it. But you know what intersection that is, is it’s Front Street, Main Street, Eddy Road, Goffstown Road and Amoskeag Street, all combined into that one intersection.
00:02:29:26 – 00:02:55:05
And it’s a mess. Oh, it is. So I mean not only that does it all converge and then you get to add the traffic. Right. Because that’s just a mess. You can have cars coming off of exit six coming onto it’s axis, it’s going down to 293 north. All this is happening all at once and you know what it’s like in the morning, like 7:00.
00:02:55:07 – 00:03:16:02
No, it’s a mess. It’s a mess. You basically you close your eyes, push the gas. That’s it. I hope you’re not driving with your eyes closed. Laney, do you have a worst intersection in New Hampshire? Oh, gosh. So we were talking about this before, and it was hard for me to pick because there’s a lot of different ones that I have had horrible experiences at.
00:03:16:05 – 00:03:37:01
But one that came to mind in particular for me was the intersection of Amherst Street and Route 3 in Nashua. I think that just because it’s a really big one, I think a lot of the time people aren’t paying attention and maybe they’re like, you know, running that yellow, not realizing that you have people taking right hand turns, you know, stuff along that nature.
00:03:37:01 – 00:03:58:25
But every time that I’ve driven past that, it’s just pretty chaotic. It’s over by exit seven and exit eight in Nashua. That one is busy and a little chaotic at times from what I’ve experienced. Oh, okay. My worst intersection is also in Manchester. It is after you go by all the stores on South Willow Street going south.
00:03:58:27 – 00:04:23:03
First of all, nobody pays attention to the lights. They’re running them and turning right and left. But you get past all of the stores on South Willow Street and you go over the bridge over Routes 293 and 101 going towards the mall. So, first of all, people aren’t paying attention. Second of all, the lanes shift. There’s an area where you can only make a left turn.
00:04:23:06 – 00:04:47:28
There’s a lot of pavement in some parts of that intersection, and it’s not really intersection, but the road going straight through where you can’t even go at all. They have it marked off. I actually had an intersection accident case there one time and one of the big insurance companies, they have a little newt as their mascot, and they were defending a guy that wasn’t paying any attention to any of that traffic and just barged right through and caused an accident.
00:04:47:28 – 00:05:07:17
And their defense in that case, we did well in the case, by the way. But the insurance company’s defense was that those signs are confusing. And I’ve always thought that was a mess and that somebody should wake up and redesign that whole part of town. But that’s just me. Yeah, I know that area, that whole mall area.
00:05:07:19 – 00:05:25:01
It’s a little extreme because it’s just like, I don’t even know how many lanes, like five, if not six lanes in that area because it’s just like right before that mall intersection is just like you have people coming in and out of the highway. So it’s just like you have all those people rushing in from the highway, all those people that were at the intersection right before that trying to get in.
00:05:25:01 – 00:05:51:17
It’s people passing. Yeah. Why don’t we go now to the ten worst intersections in New Hampshire? I’ll take the first one. How’s that? Perfect for the 10th worst intersection Routes 111 and three in Hudson, just on the eastern side of the Merrimack River Bridge into Nashua. The roads meet at an angle. There are visibility issues seeing around the corner.
00:05:51:19 – 00:06:19:03
While at this location taking the video, a person who works in the area every day told our crack camera crew that the day before this video, a tractor trailer actually drove in the wrong way and blocked the intersection as it backed up and went through the right way. Not a great intersection also, because there are lots of signs and if you are not familiar with that area, there’s just too much to read.
00:06:19:03 – 00:06:55:29
It’s a mess. Yeah. So intersection number nine is going to be in Rochester, the intersection of Route 202, a major East-West highway in New Hampshire and Estes Road. It’s a major road. But look at the shrubbery right up against that street, causing visibility issues. And look at the skid marks. It looks like we just missed an accident or two.
Number 8, in Goffstown, North Mast Road, South Mast Road, Elm Street and Route 13 all come together to give New Hampshire its eighth most dangerous intersection.
00:06:56:02 – 00:07:19:23
But it’s anything but a four way meeting. It’s more like a double “Y” kind of an offset. People who use this intersection are not surprised its on the list of the state’s most dangerous intersections. The other thing about that Goffstown meeting of the streets is that it is right in front of the popular Goffstown Sully’s Supermarket, the town Common and the town library.
00:07:19:27 – 00:07:45:12
I hope nobody’s reading a book as they drive through this area. [Interviews] First of all, what’s your name? Portland Taft. And where do you live? Dunbarton, New Hampshire. This is a bad intersection. Do you agree with it? Yes. It can be bad. It sometimes when it’s busy. Absolutely. And why do you say that? Probably like just the way it’s like mapped out or something.
00:07:45:12 – 00:08:07:25
Like sometimes the drivers don’t know how to go through the intersection and it can lead to chaos. Have you had problems here as a bicycle rider? Well, no. Well, I mean, I just wait at the sidewalks for people to let me go. I haven’t had too many issues. There’s a list of the ten worst intersections in New Hampshire, and this is number eight.
00:08:07:27 – 00:08:29:11
Does that surprise you? Not really. I could see it on that list. It is a bad intersection. I do agree with that. And yeah, look. All right. Thank you. Thank you. What do you think about this intersection? I think it’s every man for himself. Why do you say that? You’ve got to be kind of aggressive to get through it, but I never had any problems with it.
00:08:29:11 – 00:08:52:23
But people will hustle out quickly. This is on a list of the ten worst intersections in New Hampshire. This is number eight. Does that surprise you? No, it doesn’t surprise me. A light might be helpful. You’re on your bike today. Do you have more problems because you’re on a bike in this intersection? We’re not going anywhere near that.
00:08:52:25 – 00:09:13:10
Why not? Well, look at it. Yeah, No, we’re turning around right here. Staying on the bike trail. All right. Thank you. So I’m doing a podcast on the ten worst intersections in New Hampshire. This is number eight. Does that surprise you? No, because it’s hard to get in and out of that intersection coming in from the side streets.
00:09:13:13 – 00:09:40:23
It’s a little difficult. Okay. You were telling me before that they’ve talked about improving it and never done it. Not that I know of it. They’ve talked about lights and so forth, but that’s all I’ve ever known. Have you ever had any personal problems? Getting through the intersection? Just takes a little longer than you would hope. Other than that, eventually you get in and out of it.
00:09:40:23 – 00:10:04:18
I mean, New Hampshire is not a big state, but there are a lot of roads north, south, east, west. Isn’t it unusual that one of them right here in Goffstown is on the list of the ten worst? I don’t know how you could fix it.
For intersection number 7, that’s going to be in Center City, Manchester, Bridge Street and Beech Street.
00:10:04:20 – 00:10:22:13
Bridge Street is a major connector from the downtown up through some residential areas and up to route I-93. And Beech Street is one of the major north south city streets. It’s easy to see how it could be dangerous. A good portion of Manchester’s traffic goes through here, and between construction and pedestrians, it’s easy to see how things could go awry.
00:10:22:15 – 00:10:47:29
Manchester actually contributes two intersections to the most dangerous list. coming in at number 6 is Beech Street and Cilley Road. This intersection is only a block from where the major thoroughfares of South Willow Street and Queen City Avenue meet at an angle. So this end of town is just chaos in my view. If people aren’t lost and distracted here, more power to them.
00:10:48:01 – 00:11:20:20
So those are the first 5. The top, I guess. The bottom. Yeah, Intersections ten through six. Ron, do you see any trends there other than inconsiderate drivers in Manchester? Drivers basically, I think all the new cars are coming out with just one pedal and it’s the gas. But, pretty much. Do you see any common threads between these intersections?
00:11:20:22 – 00:11:46:08
I don’t know. I joked about it, but it would it makes sense to me that it’s in Manchester, not only because it’s such a densely populated area to have two of the top ones, but just because there is a lot going on in those areas with the Cilley Road one. I was surprised that Cilley road made the cut and not the Queen City like that type area because like the Cilley road one, it’s got some pretty bad visibility.
00:11:46:10 – 00:12:06:18
But it’s funny to think that people like you make it through like this other crazy intersection that’s huge. Got a lot of spaces. It’s got like a light where, you know, two lanes can be going in one direction at once, like people are turning left onto it while other people are going straight. But it’s funny, you make it through that and it’s just like Cilley Road is where it all goes wrong.
00:12:06:24 – 00:12:31:07
I think some of the problem in all these intersections, not only the one in Amherst, but the ones in Manchester that you and Ron talked about these roads were designed so long ago when, you know, there was not that much traffic. There might be one car that went by every hour. Now, as Ron pointed out earlier in that exit 8 area, the traffic is just unbelievable.
00:12:31:09 – 00:12:49:06
Manchester has just seen so much growth. It used to be a tiny, little sleepy little town. And that’s not true of Manchester. That’s not true of Nashua. That’s not true really, of anywhere in New Hampshire. So that’s that’s kind of how I see it that the roads in all of New Hampshire were designed way back in a different era.
00:12:49:06 – 00:13:12:23
But the roads really haven’t changed, have they? Ron? No, they have not. And yeah, you that’s exactly what I was thinking, was that they were built so long ago that, no, there was very little traffic and then the roads were narrow, they were built. Now there was no need for them to be now, not to compare it at all.
00:13:12:23 – 00:13:55:00
But I did have experience in Florida and the roads in Florida are huge. They’re wide, the intersections are wide and sometimes my brother-in-law actually went down there and it scared him. He says there’s too much room. But that’s and then you come up north and it’s like, you know, like in Manchester, an old, old city. And when people start parking on both sides of the street, sometimes you literally have to back up because there’s just no way, you know, when a street in Manchester is ridiculous, they park on both sides of the street and there’s no way for you to get down if someone’s coming the other way, just can’t do it.
00:13:55:02 – 00:14:23:08
Yeah, Manchester does a lot of that, actually. You know, in the old days, New Hampshire has changed a lot and my observation and it just seems to me that in the old days people said Massachusetts drivers have a reputation. And I know New York drivers have a reputation. And there’s actually a word I don’t know if we want to use it as a word that New Hampshire drivers used to use for Massachusetts drivers.
00:14:23:08 – 00:14:52:12
Do you think really that that’s true anymore? Do you think New Hampshire drivers, what we see on the roads these days in New Hampshire, do you think New Hampshire drivers are any better than Massachusetts drivers? It is always greener on the other side. You’re always going to be, you know, yeah, they’re always going to be saying that the opposite is, you know, Massachusetts and New Hampshire drivers who drive like, you know, you got a cow and it had an end in New Hampshire.
00:14:52:12 – 00:15:17:14
It’s like, oh, you got your crazy Massachusetts. However, I will say, though, Connecticut just I you know, they used to I traveled to back and forth to Florida like four times a year. I drove down from New Hampshire to Florida on 95. And every year it got worse. I mean, to the point where people just did not care.
00:15:17:16 – 00:15:42:26
And, you know, the dangerous, real dangerous going is down in Connecticut. They’ve got the turnpike Route 95 there. That was so dangerous. They had to take the toll booths out. People kept running into them. Remember that? People kept crashing into the toll booths, so they had to take them out. And that’s all I know. Well, I mean, you know what a toll booth is.
00:15:42:26 – 00:16:00:18
It is funny to agree because it’s like, how are you crashing into this? Like also you see it from so far away, this thing that happened in New Hampshire sometimes. But it happened all the time in Connecticut. And I’m kind of familiar with that area. I had some family down there briefly. I had some work down in southern Connecticut. And you’re right, they drive crazy.
00:16:00:18 – 00:16:26:17
But getting back to my question, stereotypically, the Massachusetts drivers were always said to be worse and New Hampshire drivers were always said to be so polite and nice. And I don’t think that’s true anymore. Am I wrong? What I can say about that, though, is that I think the reason why you think the Massachusetts drivers are worse, Massachusetts has a lot of city, New Hampshire doesn’t or while it is now more.
00:16:26:17 – 00:16:52:10
But I mean, think about it. You’ve got two major cities. You’ve got the Queen City and you’ve got Nashua. Well, and you have Concord. But that’s as you get further north, though, you know, it’s a little smaller. But I think that’s the thing, is that Boston, you know, Massachusetts, you got so many roads, you know, Lowell, Boston.
00:16:52:12 – 00:17:25:24
Yep. Just all these … Lawrence and Lawrence North in Derry. It just, you know, I mean, you mentioned Manchester and Nashua, but Derry is the fourth largest municipality in New Hampshire in terms of population, and you wouldn’t know it just driving down to the downtown. But it’s all, you know, a lot of commuters that live out in the burbs and so they’re in a hurry in the morning and in the evening they’re in hurry to get to their job or home. Even in post-pandemic, they’re in a hurry to get to their jobs down on Routes 128, 495 and in Boston.
00:17:25:24 – 00:17:54:29
And it’s just, I may or may not get some backlash over saying this, but driving in that area of the state, I don’t think is any better than driving in any of the places you two have talked about in Massachusetts. I’m sorry, one of our viewers, a commenter even said that a lot of the times that it’s the that the Massachusetts roads just suck and he feels that like the mass drivers just get a bad rep, you know?
00:17:55:01 – 00:18:19:04
Yeah. I think that the lines have blurred between those horrible Massachusetts drivers and the nice, polite New Hampshire people. I just I just the polite New Hampshire people going 80 miles an hour perpetually. It’s like now. All right, let’s go back to our list. Let’s finish up the list of the worst intersections in New Hampshire now. This is the top five bad intersections in New Hampshire.
00:18:19:04 – 00:18:52:05
Lainey, do you want to start out? Yeah, perfect. So now going back to the list of the most dangerous New Hampshire intersections. Now, here are the top five. So rated at the fifth most dangerous New Hampshire intersection is actually a rotary, very spicy with that one. The Derry traffic circle also known as the Danforth traffic circle after the Danforth family, a farming family, one of whose members became a physician, Dr. Mary Shepherd-Danforth. After a serious motorcycle accident here a few years ago, the town of Derry held a hearing.
00:18:52:10 – 00:19:19:02
Town officials insisted that there are rules and drivers need to follow them. Citizens at the meeting said that that’s the problem. Many drivers do not follow the rules of the road. If the yield signs going into the rotary were any bigger, they could be seen from the International Space Station.
So number four, we have the intersection of Loudon Road and Fort Eddy Road in Concord.
00:19:19:05 – 00:19:43:26
This is right next to the major commercial area with grocery stores, coffee shops and other businesses. It’s also right next to I-93 Exit 14, the major on and off ramp only a few blocks from the New Hampshire State House and other state offices. Concord also hosts intersection number three. On the other side of town, the Interstate I 89 north off ramp to Clinton Street.
00:19:43:28 – 00:20:08:18
Clinton Street also being state Highway 13. This is right next to the Concord Park-and-Ride bus stop so I can see people being late for their bus coming down this off ramp, looking at the time, checking to make sure they have everything they need for the commute in … Uh Oh.
The second worst intersection in New Hampshire is actually another traffic circle, the Lee traffic circle.
00:20:08:24 – 00:20:42:05
They redid the Lee traffic circle several years ago, adding raised platforms in the middle and new signs. But the question is whether it’s really any better? This is right up the road from the famous Lee Speedway racetrack. Drivers going through the traffic circle think this is actually the speedway? Well, interestingly, experts, traffic experts, which we’re not, but I think we are actually we have a driver a lot experts say that speeding is one of the top causes of accidents, followed closely by distracted driving.
00:20:42:10 – 00:21:04:03
Whether people are texting, talking on the phone, eating, yelling at somebody in the backseat or doing whatever they do. So speeding, distracted driving and then impaired driving, whether it’s drunk driving or anything else. Ron, what have you seen?
00:21:04:06 – 00:21:13:19
Well, well, all I can say is on 95, but I’ve seen it all.
00:21:13:22 – 00:21:31:16
I really have, actually. Well, if I had maybe some time, I could show you some pictures of when my wife would be driving most of the time and I would have my cell phone with me and I’d be taking pictures like, I cannot believe what I’m looking at right now. I got I got to get a picture.
00:21:31:18 – 00:22:02:16
Is it something you can’t really tell us on camera? Oh, no, it’s just, people, I don’t know, it’s dangerous. They’re really not driving. They’re almost like they’re doing other things, you know, because they got a huge map in front of them, and they got their hand like this, you know, and they get the map in front of them and they’re going back and forth like, you know, the man on the trapeze, you know, back and forth.
00:22:02:16 – 00:22:21:03
And I’ve actually on Route 93 going into Boston, which I know you’ve done a lot. I did for a while in the stop and road traffic of Route 93, I’ve actually seen people reading a paperback or reading The Herald. And I’m thinking to myself, you know what? When I was a strap hanger on the T and rode on the subway, sure.
00:22:21:05 – 00:22:41:21
Sure. You can read a book or you can read the The Herald, maybe not the broadsheet Globe, but you know what I mean? If you like to read, which I do, you don’t do it while you’re driving a car. It’s just. It’s just crazy. Hmm. You know, I have heard that about that. I can say No. No, I said I heard about that.
00:22:41:21 – 00:23:03:12
I mean, you know, being in the media back then, you never got time for lunch. Sometimes you’re on one story, the next story. So what about a break? No, no, no break. No break. Keep going. So I always bring my lunch with me and I would be eating on the road. I’d be going from one location to the next, eating.
00:23:03:15 – 00:23:34:11
And I got to the point where I was so proficient and efficient with it that I could eat soup. So did you ever spill? No. Spill it. Yeah, well, I was driving. Oh, yeah. All right. But I will never admit it. Did not. We do not recommend doing this at home. No professional. Well, but yes, You see them talking about speeding, Ron, you still have your motorcycle?
00:23:34:11 – 00:23:55:15
You still ride your motorcycle? No. And you know what? And I’m really serious. No, there’s a reason why I don’t drive a motorcycle. I don’t own a motorcycle anymore. It’s because of the trips back and forth on 95, it got worse and worse. And I kept on imagining I was in my car, you know, all in case, like a tank with four wheels and bumpers and everything.
00:23:55:17 – 00:24:11:26
I said, My God, if I was driving a motorcycle right now, I’ll probably be killed. Yeah, because the way the cars, you’d be just driving along and all sudden they’d be right in front of you, you know, it’s like, you know, And I hit the brakes. If I was on my bike, I’d be going sideways, you know, trying to avoid them.
00:24:11:29 – 00:24:38:00
Mm hmm. I won’t drive a motorcycle anymore. And a lot of my friends have actually stopped doing that because of all the fatalities. Mm hmm. And that’s too bad, because I know you used to enjoy that. And I’ve known other people that. I mean, having a motorcycle is a blast ride over to the beach. It’s a great way to have a good time and see the state in a way you really can’t see it in any other way.
00:24:38:03 – 00:25:10:28
And we certainly are not here to disparage motorcyclists, but hot off the press. Just the day that we’re recording and doing this podcast, New Hampshire State Police this past weekend, I don’t know if you heard this, that New Hampshire State Police clocked a motorcyclist doing 171 miles an hour. Yes, I said that right. 171. The New Hampshire State Police one Sunday saw a motorcycle going 120 miles an hour.
00:25:11:01 – 00:25:35:22
Then he actually sped up to 160 miles an hour. They had to call ahead when they first saw the guy. He was on Route 101 in Exeter, heading over where else? To the beach. And by the time they actually stopped him, Trooper Parker was able to obtain a speed reading of 171 miles per hour, which, you know, I mean, that’s unimaginable.
00:25:35:28 – 00:25:59:18
I can’t imagine riding a motorcycle at 171 miles an hour. One you know, you’re endangering yourself. Two, what about all the other people in the traffic? Three? I don’t know what three is, but it’s pretty big anyway. Well, think about this. Think about if he’s moving 171 miles an hour and an object, a truck or something came out in front of him.
00:25:59:21 – 00:26:25:14
Instant stop would be an explosion. You wouldn’t find any parts of that motorcycle or that person anymore. Think about if you you know, I’m not a scientist, but if you did run 171 miles an hour hitting an immovable object. Think about it. Hmm. I think even in a car. Even in a car with all that metal around you at 171 miles an hour, I can’t even imagine that speed.
00:26:25:16 – 00:26:44:29
Yeah, but you’re on a bike. There’s nothing. You have nothing there. What do you got? A front wheel that’s going to go face first right into whatever it is, you know, and game over. Mm. I’m not a pilot, but I think some of the smaller aircraft take off at that speed, don’t they? I mean, that’s the guy is a blur.
00:26:45:00 – 00:27:02:23
The guy is a blur on the highway and it’s. You’re right, Ron. I just. I can’t think about it. I don’t want to wrap my mind about that around that. It’s just … I’m not sure of that. Did you get the time on that? Was that at night? Right. I’m not sure if that was the doesn’t say oh wait yeah.
00:27:02:23 – 00:27:31:11
Approximately 5:15 on a Sunday going to the PM. Yeah. Not it. Not the morning 10 p.m.. Yeah. Or middle. Talk about danger. Yeah. And a lot of people on the road that that was a beautiful day. That was one of our first really beautiful, beautiful spring days. And usually at around that time in the afternoon, on a beautiful day like that, the traffic’s all coming the other way from the beach back to wherever in New Hampshire.
00:27:31:11 – 00:27:55:06
But still it would be relatively busy. Exeter is a fairly busy city and Route 101 is kind of a bypass around Exeter. You could get on it over in Epping and then kind of skirt around Exeter and then get back into it. So I can see a lot of slow folks getting on Route 101 and then getting off Route 101.
00:27:55:08 – 00:28:13:09
Then this cloud comes along at 171 miles an hour. That’s crazy. That’s just nuts. Try to go avoid them. Think about it. What if you needed to avoid them? How can you avoid somebody going that fast? You can’t. You know, you can’t even take rearview mirror one second and see nothing, and then the next stop, right? Yeah, exactly.
00:28:13:13 – 00:28:43:08
Exactly. So, sure, they throw the key away on him. But anyway, but he was charged with that. See, this is just hot off the press, folks. So forgive me for reading off this. The man was charged with reckless driving, reckless conduct and aggravated driving while intoxicated. He was actually released on personal recognizance bail and is scheduled for arraignment in Hampton Circuit Court.
00:28:43:10 – 00:29:04:03
Okay. Back to the bad intersections. Now, one thing that’s always amazed me is that people always blame the road. It’s the road’s fault. That’s a bad intersection. There was an accident recently in one of the towns we’ve mentioned. I’m not going to repeat it the other day where a car flipped over and people were saying, Oh, well, that’s a bad road.
00:29:04:03 – 00:29:29:09
Well, you know what? When these cases go to court, it doesn’t really get people very far to say, oh, well, it was a bad road. There’s actually a case that went all the way up to the New Hampshire Supreme Court where there was an accident at the intersection of Bypass 28 and Wellington Road. It’s east of Manchester, and a man was killed.
00:29:29:12 – 00:30:00:13
He was driving on Bypass 28, which is the major north south road around Manchester. And the guy was driving eastbound on Wellington Road, blew the stop sign, went into the road, hit the car that was going on Route 28 bypass. He died. So his family, the executors, brought a lawsuit in the Superior Court and it ended up in the New Hampshire Supreme Court in Concord.
00:30:00:16 – 00:30:24:29
And the issue in that case was whether, first of all, they exhausted the insurance of the guy that blew the stop sign. That’s number one. They got his insurance. But, you know, in a wrongful death case like that, that’s really not enough. And the family members then sued the state of New Hampshire and the City of Manchester, saying that this was a terrible intersection and they knew about the fact that it was a terrible intersection.
00:30:25:01 – 00:30:47:24
There had been a number of accidents at that intersection in the three years before this accident. And the City of Manchester pointed the finger at the state and said, we think that you should put a flashing yellow light, red light at that intersection, red obviously, for Bypass, 28, yellow for Wellington. So this this goes back a little bit.
00:30:48:01 – 00:31:11:14
The intersection is a little bit different now. But back then, the City of Manchester told the state of New Hampshire, we want a flashing light, Nothing happened. And so this went up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, hey, you know what? You can’t really blame either the city or the state because this is what’s called a discretionary function.
00:31:11:14 – 00:31:36:03
In other words, where officials sit down and either they’re legislators or they’re executives and they make a decision whether to do something or not to do something, that’s a discretionary function. And the law protects the city and the state from liability in a case like that. So they said, you know, I’m sorry, the case is dismissed and you really can’t go anywhere.
00:31:36:06 – 00:32:00:15
Actually, the procedure was a little bit different, but we’re not in law school. Civil procedure 101. So the bottom line there is that you really don’t do well in blaming the city or the town for a bad intersection. There’s another case over in Rochester. We talked about Route 202. This was at the intersection of Salmon Falls Road, not far from the bad intersection we talked about before, but different.
00:32:00:18 – 00:32:30:22
What happened in that case? Again, somebody blew a stop sign, went into the major road, which was 202. And in this case, the passenger in the car that ran the stop sign sued everybody. And the New Hampshire Supreme Court said, yeah, that’s a dangerous intersection. But then having taken note of the fact that it was a dangerous intersection, ignored the fact, and then went on and found that the guy that blew the stop sign, he’s the guy that’s liable.
00:32:30:22 – 00:32:56:02
So the moral of the story here is that, yeah, there are very bad intersections everywhere. But you know what? If you legally want to hold cities and towns accountable for these things, you’ve got a tough row to hoe. I’m not going to say it’s impossible. It has happened. There have been cases, but I think these two cases that went all the way to the New Hampshire Supreme Court pretty much represent what happens in court.
00:32:56:02 – 00:33:30:05
The first one, the Wellington Road accident. That case, although it’s a little bit old, it’s been cited favorably 14 times in other Supreme Court cases, and it’s never once been overruled or even mentioned negatively. So that’s the law in New Hampshire. On bad intersections, it’s not necessarily bad intersections. It’s more bad drivers. You know, So it’s interesting, I guess to me that like even though the town knew it was a bad intersection that like they can’t be held liable for something like that, I mean, ultimately it’s the town’s responsibility to want to make sure that things are as safe for people as possible.
00:33:30:08 – 00:33:52:00
But it’s interesting, I guess, to me, like, what can you really do to like when you know something’s a problem, like how to make the town act on that? Well, what you can do is drive carefully, drive carefully. In the dairy traffic circle situation, again, there was a meeting and they had a meeting. And so they can write down in the reports that they had a meeting.
00:33:52:03 – 00:34:11:03
But the bottom line was the local officials said there are rules, you got to follow them and the people at the meeting said, well, people don’t follow them. So it kind of went it went around in a circle. And I don’t want to say what I think is going to happen there, and I hope I’m wrong, but that’s really all you can do is is stop blaming the road and open our eyes.
00:34:11:03 – 00:34:36:15
Ron, did you have any closing thoughts about this? Well, actually, I saw a bumper sticker, and you were talking about Massachusetts drivers. And this is no joke. I saw a bumper sticker the other day and it said the brakes question mark, you know the bumper sticker that says “Got milk?”. Well this one says “Got Brakes?”
00:34:36:15 – 00:34:59:08
Use them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s another one with the the initials “AAM Club” All About Me.” Oh yeah. Well that’s, that’s pretty much that, that sums it up, you know. But I think that I know like I said before, I think that’s true in both states now, I question whether New Hampshire drivers are any better anymore.
00:34:59:11 – 00:35:31:04
Mm. They get the same. It’s all transients, you know, they come from Massachusetts, they move to New Hampshire. It doesn’t matter, say people. And if people don’t like what I just said, send your hate mail to the comments below. We will respond in a future podcast, right? Yeah, of course. And now we’ve talked a lot about, you know, what intersections are bad and things that we can do to prevent it.
00:35:31:07 – 00:36:02:01
Okay. Just paying attention. With all that being said, now, what is the number one worst intersection in New Hampshire? This, folks, is the worst intersection in the entire state of New Hampshire. Again, that’s according to the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. And the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Their statistics, again were crunched by both Business Insider and by Time Magazine.
00:36:02:03 – 00:36:29:22
This intersection, in case you don’t recognize it is the intersection of Broadway and Main Street in Salem, New Hampshire. Now, those are also Routes 28 and Route 97 in Salem, New Hampshire, two very major intersections in southern New Hampshire. Now, I’ve been through this intersection many times, and it’s a tough one. It’s undergoing a lot of changes right now with a brand new development down the road called Tuscan Village.
00:36:30:00 – 00:36:51:21
It’s where the Rockingham Park racetrack used to be, and it’s now being redeveloped into condos and major commercial developments. So the way I see it and I’m not a traffic engineer nor am I a civil engineer, but I am a taxpayer in New Hampshire and also a motorist who again, has been through this intersection many, many times.
00:36:51:23 – 00:37:16:23
I guess it’s not going to get any better. I’m just surprised that out of all of the intersections that the worst one would be in Salem, versus, you know, some place like we talked about, Concord, Nashua, Manchester, Derry, the more populous areas. But maybe part of the reason that it’s not as densely populated contributes to the fact that people aren’t used to driving there and less, you know, cautious, are aware of what’s happening on the road.
00:37:16:25 – 00:37:42:10
Well, I think the interesting thing about what you just said is I did a blog article on this very same topic and I think it was nine years ago, if I’m not mistaken, and that even back then, that was the number one worst intersection also back then. So I think and I don’t know, I’m not a traffic engineer, I don’t pretend to be one, but I think the problem at that intersection is because the racetrack used to be there and there’s a lot of construction.
00:37:42:10 – 00:38:04:12
Now they’re converting it into Tuscan village. There are a lot of restaurants that are going up. There’s like a little mini, not a strip mall, not a mall, but kind of a mishmash of of stores. I’m not going to name them. I could, but there’s a bunch of stores there and it’s so new and there’s so much construction there.
00:38:04:12 – 00:38:31:07
As you can see behind me, when I was doing standing out there in the intersection and risking my life to do that, I think people get the wrong idea that they can just like drive like a crazy person and they don’t even see the light. And there’s a lot of construction. I remember when they were doing construction, you were coming southbound on Route 28, just coming to the intersection, and it was extremely confusing.
00:38:31:09 – 00:38:49:08
I’ll say it. They did a horrible job of marking off where the construction was. They had those little cones in the middle of the road that people were driving on both sides of it. So it’s not just me. And so that construction has been ongoing for a long time. I don’t think there’s any end in sight. They tore down a bunch of the buildings.
00:38:49:08 – 00:39:13:03
There was an old bakery there. There was a real estate office there. There were a bunch of other businesses there and they tore them all down. So there are a lot of distractions there. And I don’t think that people are really paying attention to the road so much as the distractions and having no idea where to go and that every time you drive down there seemingly there’s different construction in a different area.
00:39:13:03 – 00:39:30:15
So that’s my take on that. Yeah, that makes sense. Like you said it perfectly there, it’s the distractions. It’s just seeing the construction happening. It’s like an accident when even if the road is clear in front of them, a lot of people still slow down because they’re turning their heads, like not paying attention to what’s in front of them, but what’s happening along the side lines.
00:39:30:18 – 00:39:59:28
Okay. Well, Ron, thank you very much for joining us. I appreciate it. I know you’re a busy guy, but thanks for coming in. If you have any comments or critiques of our website or our podcast today, please let us know. You can go into the comments section down below. If you’d like to talk to us about an accident or wrongful death, a car accident, a slip and fall, any kind of an accident like that, you can go into the comments section, you can go on to my website:
00:39:59:28 – 00:40:24:28
Attorney-Myers.com that’s my website. You can either go into the contact us block or the telephone numbers are up above. Thank you guys so much for watching today’s episode of About the Law. Thank you once again, Ron, for joining us today. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe and check out our latest blog post on the website.
00:40:24:28 – 00:40:56:10
I hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your day and we’ll see you next time. Thank you. You have been watching About the Law, a production of the Law Offices of Andrew D. Myers in Methuen, in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts and Derry, New Hampshire. Please give us a lake and subscribe. The foregoing is offered for informational purposes only.
00:40:56:12 – 00:41:16:09
It is not intended as, nor does it constitute legal advice. Laws vary widely from state to state. You should rely only on the advice given to you during a personal consultation by a local attorney who is thoroughly familiar with state laws and the area of practice in which your concern lies.
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