Most people want Lambert to lower the limit near their home or business.
But that's not always the safest route, Lambert said. And now he has the data to help him make the case.
The state Department of Transportation recently purchased a new data system from TomTom — the company that pioneered the idea of GPS navigation systems in our cars — that provides real-time traffic data.
In the old days, Lambert said, engineers conducted traffic studies by visiting a certain road and using a radar gun to measure drivers' speeds. More recently, they've used devices set up on roadways that measure vehicles' speeds as they pass over.
Now, with the TomTom "probe" data, Lambert can see how traffic behaves along a targeted route.
The data comes from those onboard navigation systems in vehicles that use satellites to calculate routes, find local attractions and monitor road conditions. "Because that satellite is connecting to that navigation system, the system is also connecting to the satellite to populate the data," Lambert explained.
The system collects a "representative sample" of the traffic, he said.
"I'm trying to use this data to make sure that speed limits are credible for the character and conditions of the roads across the state," Lambert said. And that involves working with communities "to try to create that credible speed limit," he said.
A lot of people might be surprised to learn how much discretion DOT has to set speed limits.
The general premise is set out in New Hampshire RSA 265:60: "No person shall drive a vehicle on a way at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under the conditions and having regard to the actual and potential hazards then existing."
The law sets some parameters: 10 mph in school zones; 25 mph for vehicles with transponders going through automated tolls; 30 mph for business and "urban residence" districts; 35 mph in "rural residence" districts (think suburban areas) and Class V highways; 65 and 70 mph on the interstate system and four-lane highways; and 55 mph everywhere else.
But RSA 265:62 gives the state commissioner of transportation authority to establish "safe speed zones," based on an engineering and traffic investigation. And municipal leaders can petition for reduced speed limits on a portion of a state roadway "to provide reasonable and safe conditions."
'TARGET SPEED'
The rubber meets the road in Lambert's Concord office.
Lowering a speed limit to what Lambert calls "a wishful thinking value" usually doesn't work, he said. "We find that traffic is not going any slower because we want them to," he said.
Instead, it's about achieving a "target speed" for a given road, he said. And that's where the data can help.
Research going back to the 1960s found that if you plotted vehicle speeds on a bell curve, the lowest crash rate occurred at the 85th percentile of measured traffic speed, Lambert said. That refers to the speed at or below which 85% of vehicles are traveling on a given roadway.
Federal guidance recommends that a speed limit should be within 5 mph of that 85th percentile. And traffic engineers look at that when designing roads and setting speed limits.
In the month that DOT has had the new data program, Lambert has run 30 traffic reports to look at the speeds that vehicles are traveling on targeted sections of state roadways.
Anyone can ask the traffic engineer to evaluate a local speed limit, Lambert said. "Everybody thinks people go by their house too fast," he said with a smile.
But he always makes sure the conversation includes the town's perspective, "because they're the ones that have to enforce it."
One new resident of a North Country town called to ask him to reduce the speed limit near his home from 55 to 35. "For me, it's less safe to make it 35," Lambert said. "He's assuming they're going to go slower because the speed limit changed."
That's not necessarily true, Lambert said.
The town of Swanzey recently asked DOT to consider lowering the speed limit on a state road from 35 mph to 30 mph, to match the lower speed limit on the town section of roadway.
The TomTom data shows the 85th percentile in that 30 mph area is 43 mph.
The data doesn't support lowering the speed limit, Lambert had to tell Swanzey officials.
Sometimes it's the opposite conversation. The police chief in Wakefield contacted Lambert with his concerns about enforcing a 35-mph section of Route 153, where drivers frequently were stopped going 50 to 60 mph. Drivers going 60 on that road, the chief told him, were getting hit with big fines for going 25 miles over the speed limit.
In the end, Lambert raised the speed limit to 45.
But his team also put up 200 additional signs along that road, warning of upcoming curves, he said. "So from a safety perspective, rather than two black-and-white signs that say 35, at each curve we're telling people: This is where you should slow down."
It was a similar solution on a stretch of the Kancamagus Highway, where DOT raised the speed limit from 40 to 50 mph — but also eliminated seven of eight passing lanes. "They did not have enough sight distance for 50 miles per hour, which is what most people were driving," Lambert said.
'THE CONVINCER'
Lambert said he seeks local support before making a change. "I'd rather be the convincer, and if I can't convince a town, I'm not looking to increase the speed," he said.
Making sure speed limits in particular locations are "credible" can make all roads safer, Lambert said. Otherwise, drivers get used to ignoring posted speed limits.
"If some speed limits are credible and others aren't, and people disrespect them in places where they're not, then they can disrespect them in other places and go too fast," he said.
Take the Everett Turnpike in Nashua, for instance, where the posted speed limit is 55 mph. Probe data shows most vehicles are driving in the high 70s, Lambert said. Even if the speed limit were set at 60 mph, "only 15 percent of the people would be doing the speed limit," he said.
"The logical thing to do with this is to get buy-in from the city of Nashua and state police that the speed limit is not appropriate for that road, and make it 65," he said.
With traffic deaths rising around the country, however, some safety groups say it's time to revisit that 85th percentile study from the 1960s.
Traffic speeds in New Hampshire definitely increased during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lambert said, "when nobody was on the roads." And many drivers haven't slowed down since, with sometimes deadly consequences.
This has been "a terrible year" for fatal crashes, says State Police Capt. Christopher Vetter, commander of the Department of Safety's Office of Highway Safety.
As of Oct. 13, 108 people have died in 99 crashes. That's a big increase compared with the same period last year, when 89 fatalities were reported in 80 crashes.
The total number of traffic fatalities in 2021 was 118, up from 104 in 2020.
Motorcycle fatalities in particular have spiked, with 30 individuals killed this year, compared with 21 at the same time last year, Vetter said.
He recently clocked a driver on the Seacoast going 127 mph. When he approached the vehicle, he discovered the driver was 16 years old, fresh from driver's ed. "He'd had his license for just about two months," he said.
The new data analysis program at DOT dovetails with the Department of Safety's own plans to improve how crash data is reviewed, and use it to improve safety with targeted resources, Vetter said. It's a "work in progress," he said.
"There's a lot of data that we can gain a lot of knowledge from," he said. "Because the ultimate goal is to minimize crashes and eliminate fatalities. It really is that simple."
What does all this new data collection mean for driver privacy? Both Vetter and Lambert said the data is aggregated, and does not identify individual vehicles or drivers.
"What I'm trying to do as an aggregate is find out what the public is doing on a road ... so that we know what a reasonable and safe speed is," Lambert said.
In the future, Lambert said, information gleaned from the probe data will be shared with the public through the 511 system, so New Hampshire residents and visitors can navigate around crashes and other traffic congestion.
TORTOISE AND HARE
Lambert meets regularly with state and local police chiefs to share ideas about improving traffic safety, and the group recently expanded to include insurance companies and auto dealers.
Safe-driver credits from insurance companies can help change behavior, Lambert said. And some safety groups are pushing for automakers to build in warning sounds when vehicles exceed the speed limits.
It's like those "feedback signs" police set up to warn passing motorists how fast they're going compared with the speed limit, Lambert said. "If that driver feedback was in your car, it would be with you all the time and not at just one spot on the road," he said.
And here's an obvious solution: How about governors that limit how fast a car can travel? "We have the technology to have cars not go 160 miles an hour," Lambert said.
He'd like to see more stigma attached to driving too fast. But all these things would mean a cultural shift, he said.
"People kind of appreciate speed and celebrate speed," he said. "It's getting people collectively to accept that premise."
To that end, Lambert carries a picture book in his backpack: "The Tortoise and the Hare."
Whenever he's in a public discussion about highway safety and speed limits, Lambert said, "I pull it out of the backpack and say: 'This is where we start.'"
"We learn when we're 3 years old, slow and steady wins the race," he said. "We get a driver's license and we forget that."
©2022 The New Hampshire Union Leader , Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
