A higher percentage of traffic fatalities in New Hampshire involved speeding than was the case in any other state in recent years and the state’s death rate from speeding-related accidents was 50% higher than the national average, according to a new report.
The analysis by CoPilot, a firm that creates analytic software for the automotive industry, said that 52% of road fatalities in New Hampshire from 2014 to 2018 involved speeding, more than any other state. In Massachusetts, 28% of crash fatalities were speeding-related; in Vermont, 40% and in Maine, 32%.
Rockingham County the Seacoast area was the worst of the state’s 10 counties and the second-worst in the entire country in this category, with 60% of its road fatalities related to speeding. In Merrimack County the rate was 50%.
Over that period New Hampshire had 4.5 speeding-related deaths per 100,000 people, compared to the national average of 2.9 per 100,000. Massachusetts had speeding-related 1.5 traffic deaths per 100,000 people, one of the lowest rates in the county; in Vermont the figure was 3.9 and in Maine 3.7.
Note, however, that this doesn’t mean New Hampshire’s are the most unsafe of any state. In terms of both fatalities per capita and fatalities per mile driven, New Hampshire is in the middle of the pack among states, as seen from data by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
What the report shows is that when fatal accidents occur here they are more likely to be the result of speeding – indicating that cracking down on speeders would have more safety benefits in New Hampshire than anywhere else.
The full report from CoPilot can be seen online at copilotsearch.com/posts/states-and-counties-with-worst-speeding-problem.
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