More accidents in Route 4

Submitted by Few-Afternoon-6276 t3_11hp480 in newhampshire

Chichester east bound accident tonight- when does this stretch get reviewed for some road safety?

The car coming west bound towards Concord leaves his lane near Prime empty lot and the truck in front of me decides to swerve and the hit just off head on. Small car spins around flinging all his car body all over the road and the truck ends up on the other side of the road - never losing control of his vehicle and ( but loses entire front passenger and wheel of truck) this happens about 20ft in front of me. That guy in the truck saved every life out there for his maneuvers. Wish I had a dash cam for this one. Everyone walked away.

The question: how many accidents till the State scratches their head and says Gee Whiz…. That road is a death trap. Come over those roses with someone turning left and you get a big surprise!

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MingoRepp t1_jaupwvl wrote

No doubt he amount of traffic on 4 has to have at least doubled in the past 5 years from Concord to the coast. Saw one on the Northwood/Nottingham line at Cooper Hill rd today. That being said 90% of these accidents are driver error. Seems everyone has forgotten your not supposed to cross a solid line regardless of color, the exception being the left turn center lanes, which is a concept that still continues to baffle people. Example 1... If you're taking a left, this lane is for you, but NOT for a an entire ¼ mile, only just before the entrance you plan to take.

Example 2- same scenario. If the vehicle in front of you is taking a RIGHT, that previously mentioned left hand turn lane is NOT your 'go around' lane. Thats how head on collisions happen Dum-Dum.

Example 3- said lane is NOT made for your staging/launch speed zone during heavy traffic. Wait your turn like the rest of us Genius.

Also, please re-learn the right of way rules of the road, they are there for a reason. Waving someone out into traffic before your turn may seem to cover your daily 'good deed' , but its only going to get that person into heaven quicker, not you. ...Fuck me.

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overdoing_it t1_javhmj9 wrote

> said lane is NOT made for your staging/launch speed zone during heavy traffic.

Are you sure? I always thought that it was allowed to pull into a center lane to merge. It feels safer because it's a wide turn and I like to give my mirror a second check to make sure the right lane is still clear.

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usual_nerd t1_javlfwa wrote

You are correct, it is a place for drivers to wait for an opening.

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usual_nerd t1_javlwjl wrote

The number of serious crashes on Route 4 is higher than comparable roads in NH. It has an unsafe design that encourages high speeds in areas with far too many driveways. When you have cars entering and leaving the main road, they have to go relatively slow. When you have a speed limit if 50 with a design that allows people to go faster than that, the engineers are responsible for many of the crashes, even if drivers should also be improving their behavior.

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Intru t1_jausy6d wrote

They are crashes not accidents, accidents imply that it's a one off, traffic engineering is just some civil engineering with some extra training videos and the profession as a whole has passed the liability of their poor design almost exclusively to drivers, no to say drivers aren't partly to blame. But road design is inherently unsafe in America, we should be designing to prevent bad behavior and not to tolerate it. But this means people would feel inconvenience or have to slow down, reduce lane sizes or cut down on road expansion and amount of lanes, remove turn lanes, maybe even induce some traffic and we can't have that..

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RickyDaytonaJr t1_javwtkh wrote

Engineers could design every road in New Hampshire like a bumper car track and there would still be lots of crashes. Next time you are out and about, take a look at how many drivers are looking at the phone in their lap rather than the road, or how many drivers cross the centerline, or how many drivers tailgate at unsafe distances, or how many drivers cut people off at turns, or how many drivers are traveling at excessive speeds, or how many drivers don’t understand the right-of-way rules at stop signs, or how many drivers speed up to go through the yellow light at an intersection. You’d need to find one hell of a team of engineers to develop designs that preemptively avoid all of that behavior.

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Intru t1_jax1nn6 wrote

Correct, I do a lot of my work and advocacy in the field of transportation. I know what people are doing and how smart phone are contributing to the sharp increase in automotive related crashes, I also know that the pandemic has sped up a lot of bad behavior especially in areas where traffic disappeared and it just coming back, people got used to having free rain over empty roads and copping with the increase in driving again has not come without a cost.

There's a lot of design considerations that have already been vetted through testing and implementation that can do things like this, we just don't use them in the states. This does need to go in tandem with policies reform and there need to be a heck more public will and that is where the problem lies, not necessary on the engineering side.

We know how to do this; a lot of traffic calming and safe street guidelines exist. We just don't do it because of bureaucratic inertia (engineers that might have the knowledge aren't in positions to change 50+ years of DPW/DOT bureaucracy and archaic policies), political will (politicians aren't willing to stake their careers on safety if it means inconveniencing commuters and getting them voted out) and public opinion/will (people just don't like change especially change that in the short term might inconvenience them, traffic is a very complex and fluid topic that has a lot of counter intuitive aspect to it that people might not fully be able to grasp making it a tough sell unless people are already wanting safety improvements on their street).

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RickyDaytonaJr t1_jax5y8q wrote

Your safety utopia will become a reality when CAVs become ubiquitous and humans are taken out of the equation. I’m not an engineer, but it seems like the Chuck Marohns of the world have convinced bike/ped advocates that engineers are inept, hate bike/ped infrastructure, and can prevent bad driver behavior by uniformly implementing a certain set of design guidelines (like NACTO). The reality is that there are about 5-6 communities in NH where those sort of design guidelines make any sense whatsoever. The rest of the State is rural and sparsely populated, and will always be automobile oriented.

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Intru t1_jaxlapx wrote

I as most people that work in planning and design are more than aware of the limitations at societal, geographical, and political levels. I was focusing here on safety in road design and not by any means focusing on land-use and ped/bike improvements. There's a lot that can be done in just the vehicular right of way to improve safety of just vehicular users especially on route 4 which is a mayor commuting corridor with descent amount of commercial and suburban development.

I really wouldn't describe myself as somebody that prescribe to what Chuck and his beef with engineering has built-up into a bit of an engineering witch hunt, but I don't believe them to be completely absolved from blame either and was pretty clear about that in my last post when I describe the multiple systematic issues outside of engineering.

At the end we need to always try better and not be conforming to bad behavior as an inevitability, you have your thought on addressing it and I have mine and I'm sure we intersect on a few points.

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usual_nerd t1_javmyas wrote

You’re right about crashes, but your assessment of the training of transportation engineers is not correct. Having questionable priorities based on years of car-focused policies isn’t the same as only watching training videos. Civil engineering has many sub specialties and most college programs give you a few classes on each with options for more electives. There are arguments to be made about whether a broad base of understanding or specialization is more important, but water resources engineers and geotechnical engineers don’t get more specialization either. Most learning takes place on the job while you are an engineer-in-training (min of 4 years).

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Intru t1_javv910 wrote

I know, I might of been a bit harsh but I did studied it. And even tho I exaggerated and catoonized it I do so out of frustration, because I see my piers so wholly unprepared and pushing archaic priorities when put in a DPW role. That's not to say that they are all like this, there some very competent DPW staff in the Seacoast, for example, that usually get vetoed down by state or local pressure do to lack of understanding, byzantine regulations, or just local pressures and fears of change.

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Azr431 t1_javo4bd wrote

Not sure why you’re getting downvotes, you’re right

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Intru t1_javwviw wrote

People aren't really ready or want safe streets and all the infrastructure changes that this requires. They just want other "bad" drivers off the roads. It's the "I'm a good driver syndrome", we are all good drivers in our own eyes and its the others that are doing something wrong.

"Why should my drive be inconvenience with these safety designs, we just need to get rid of bad drivers".

But that not how safety works, if we want people to drive in a certain way we need to ingrain that in the actual infrastructure so that laws and enforcement can actually be reflected in the design of the road/street.

And that not even addressing the question of why there are so many drivers in the first place. Which begs us to ask, should we looking at choices for mobility shifting where possible, as a way of providing options and reduce the amount of trips done/requiring a car?

This are the questions we need to be asking, especially around our southern urban center and mayor transit corridors.

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Maldonian t1_jaw08hg wrote

These are preventable crashes, not “accidents.”

You yourself mentioned that one motorist decided to leave his lane.

Instead of blaming the road, a solution might be a real road test that means people have to actually be good at driving to get a license, and strong enforcement of traffic laws. (But without just using the laws as revenue traps.)

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Few-Afternoon-6276 OP t1_jawuy0q wrote

I agree with you that it was preventable.

However, without being able to rely on all drivers to act in their or other best interest - driving east bound there are a few roses that are complete blind spots and only once you are almost at the crest, can you see.

There are accident from left turns due to the rise and blind spot- this is what I speak of.

Last night was a fluke, however, in searching for the accident- I discover many accidents and this route gets their fair share.

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Intru t1_jaxmh56 wrote

Like most things the answer lies relatively in the middle, there's definitely a need for better testing, more consequential Enforcment, and safer road design.

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RelationshipJust9556 t1_javpovs wrote

rTe 4 is just an old old road people treat as a highway. problem is its the best east west we have in the area.

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glitteryunicornlady t1_jawnb0s wrote

I've only driven there a handful of times, and was warned the first time. They sure meant it.

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kikrs999 t1_jaz78x4 wrote

My partner grew up in Chichester. When he was a kid (mid-late 80’s) he remembers seeing bumper stickers and other paraphernalia with: “I survived route 4!” It has a legacy of car accidents.

Off topic, but I grew up in Manchester around the same time, and remember rt 101 being called “death highway.” Our annual vacation was to York Beach (classic). I recall being petrified and hiding in the back seat the entire drive to/from the coast.

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EmeraldMoose12 t1_jaw353x wrote

Seacoast NH drivers basically drive like Massholes. They look at you like you’re the asshole when you’re doing 70 in a 55, because they can’t drive 80.

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Few-Afternoon-6276 OP t1_jawuigs wrote

So, this near head in occurs and some driver decides it’s a great time to speed through. He can’t see the front end of car 1 strewn about and proceeds to shatter every piece of glass, plastic, or any other large part( front passenger quarter panel, bumper from front) in the road. About 1/2 way through, the driver realizes his error and attempts to brake abruptly and then sees car 1 about 10 feet in front of him- he makes it by with a swerve and goes on with his night. I can’t believe this stuff!!

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