Car Accidents

Car Crashes into DMV Building in Concord

By • Nov 7, 2018
Courtesy NH State Police

New Hampshire State Police are investigating after a car drove into the offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The accident happened at about 9 a.m. Wednesday and caused significant damage to the façade of the DMV building in Concord. No injuries were reported.

State Police Major John Encarnacao  says an investigation is still ongoing but at this point it seems like it was just an accident.

“There was no impairment or anything. It was a simple mistake by the operator. It appears that she may have just hit the accelerator rather than the brake.”

Driver Killed in Four-Car Crash on I-95 in Hampton Falls

By Associated Press • Sep 24, 2018
NHPR File Photo

 

A Maine motorist is dead after a four-vehicle crash that spanned both north and southbound lanes of Interstate 95 in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire State Police say the crash happened just before 8 p.m. Sunday in Hampton Falls, when 56-year-old Siow Chang of Falmouth, Maine, stopped in the northbound travel lane for an unknown reason. Chang's vehicle was then struck from behind by a pickup truck, pushing Chang's vehicle into the southbound lane, where it collided with a van. Then van then crashed into another car.

N.H. State Police: Steep Decline In Distracted Driving Fatalities Linked To Hands-Free Law

By The Exchange • Jun 26, 2017
NHPR Flickr

It's been two years this week since New Hampshire's hands-free driving law banning the use of hand-held devices behind the wheel went into effect.

Major Matt Shapiro of the New Hampshire State Police was one of the leaders behind this law, aimed at getting drivers's eyes away from their phones and on the road.  Speaking on The Exchange, Shapiro says there is clear evidence it's working. 

The Dangers of Distracted Driving

By The Exchange • Jun 23, 2017
Sadie Colbert; USAF

The start of summer marks the one-hundred deadliest days of driving for teenagers, but young drivers aren't the only high risk people hitting the streets.  It's been two years since the Hands-Free driving law went into effect in New Hampshire, but how much has it improved the safety of our roads? Do we need to go further? 


Why N.H. Roadways Are Becoming Deadlier

By The Exchange • Sep 20, 2016
digitizedchaos / flickr/cc

After decades of improved safety on our roadways, the trend seems to be reversing, with major increases in fatalities around the country and in New Hampshire.  We look at the reasons for the dramatic uptick in traffic deaths, including distracted drivers and cheap gas.  

This program was originally heard on Aug. 31, 2016.

Banning Hand-held Cell Phone Use May Not Reduce Accidents

By • Jun 25, 2015
Craig Murphy via Flickr CC / https://flic.kr/p/5Syj9C

 As New Hampshire gets set to enact a ban on handheld cellphone use while driving, there is some evidence that such bans in other states have had little effect on accident rates.

In a 2014 study, researcher Dan Kaffine and others at the University of Colorado Boulder found no evidence that a California ban on using handheld cellphones while driving actually decreased the number of traffic accidents in that state.

Dan Kaffine joined Morning Edition to talk about the issue.

Three Killed In Crash On Route 9 In Stoddard

By • Aug 3, 2014

A Massachusetts woman and her son and a Florida woman were killed in a crash in western New Hampshire.

State Police say 54-year-old Mary Newton of Greenfield, Massachusetts, was driving west on Route 9 in Stoddard on Saturday afternoon when her car crossed into the eastbound lane and crashed head-on with a recreational vehicle. Newton and her 16-year-old son were killed, as was a passenger in the RV, 68-year-old Dulce Marie Campo Perez of West Melbourne, Florida.

The driver of the RV was seriously injured.

The crash remains under investigation.

Woman Charged With Negligent Homicide In Deaths Of Bicyclists

By Associated Press • Sep 24, 2013

  Police have charged a 20-year-old woman with negligent homicide in connection with a weekend crash that killed two cyclists in Hampton, N.H.

Investigators say a car driven by Darriean Hess, of Seabrook, was speeding, crossed the center line and struck a group of riders at 8:30 a.m. Saturday on a bridge during an annual long-distance ride.

Hess was also charged with assault Tuesday.

The crash killed two Massachusetts women, Pamela Wells, of South Hamilton, and Elise Bouchard, of Danvers. Two other riders were injured.

White Mountains Crash Kills 2 London Tourists

By Associated Press • Sep 9, 2013

Two tourists from London died and two others were injured when their van left the road and struck a tree after they were hiking in New Hampshire's Mount Washington Valley.

Bartlett police say 68-year-old Julyan Heazell and her 77-year-old husband, Robert Heazell, died from injuries suffered in the Sunday afternoon crash.

WMVW-Radio reports that the rental van was driven by Robert Heazell's brother — 62-year-old Garrett Heazell, also of London. Garrett Heazell and his 62-year-old wife, Pamela Heazell, are recovering from non-life-threatening injuries.

Six Injured In Crash In The North Country

By Chris Jensen • Sep 29, 2012

A single-car crash Friday night in Littleton injured six people, two of them seriously, said Littleton police chief Paul Smith.

Smith said the accident occurred just past 11 p.m. on Route 135 just north of its intersection with Interstate 93.

He said the driver of a 2012 Toyota Camry lost control and the vehicle “left the road and collided with a telephone pole, which caused the vehicle to roll over several times.”

Several people were thrown from the vehicle.

About 25 Percent of Those Killed in 2011 Crashes Were Thrown From Their Vehicles

By Chris Jensen • Jan 4, 2012

New Hampshire remains the only state that doesn’t require adults to wear seat belts and many of the people killed in the state last year in crashes were thrown from their vehicles.  

By the end of 2011 eighty-eight people had been killed in traffic accidents in the state.

About a quarter of them were either thrown completely from their vehicles or partially ejected, according to state figures.

That means they were probably not wearing seat belts.

“When people are ejected from the vehicles they are two to four times more likely to die in a crash.”