A two-lane freeway with a 65 mph limit in congested areas could be one a cause of a spike in highway deaths' Look into it.
Call it "Fatal Mystery on Route 55."
Before camera crews from TV's "48 Hours" or "Dateline" go streaming down the Turnpike, an unsolved homicide is not riding along one of South Jersey's vital highways.
The issue on Route 55 is a spike in motor vehicle deaths during the first four months of 2016. There have been seven on the 40-mile freeway as of Friday, in seven different mishaps. Seven deaths occurred on Route 55 as in all of 2015.
The road had six fatalities each during both all of 2014 and 2013, and no fatal crashes in 2012. That makes for a head-scratching trend that officials should want to reverse. This year's crashes took place under a variety of weather conditions and apparent causes. Some were rear-end collisions. In others, a single car left the roadway and went into the woods.
New Jersey State Police spokesman Capt. Stephen Jones says that troopers will step up patrols based on trends. It could help. It would be better, however, if the state Department of Transportation and state police could find an underlying cause for the higher death counts.
Jones mentioned excessive speed, so one wonders about having a 65-mph limit on a road with only two lanes in each direction. Route 55 is 65 mph along nearly its entire length, except its northern terminus with busy Route 42 in Deptford Township. Route 55 also lacks a center lane for virtually its entire distance.
Anecdotal observation reveals more than a few occasions where drivers who wish to pass are unable to do so, with slower vehicles traveling in both lanes. "Slower" here is a relative term. These cars may already be going 65 or 70 mph, but are being tailgated by motorists trying to go 75 or 80. Frustration, and who knows what else, ensues.
The state should study shifting the limit to 55 mph further into Gloucester County, which has more than twice the daily traffic of the road's Cumberland County sections.m If traffic counts have exploded since the road was finished in 1989, that can't be ignored.
Adding a third lane in congested areas could be prohibitively expensive. Would this be beneficial regardless of cost? Some good data should be available from the Atlantic City Expressway, which has been upgraded to three lanes at choke points in recent years.
As New Jersey limited-access highways go, Route 55 is straight and flat, with basically decent pavement conditions. It doesn't have the conflicting signs that stun unfamiliar motorists heading onto Routes 76/42/295 from the Walt Whitman Bridge.
There may be no quick Route 55 fix, engineering-wise. Meanwhile, the shore season is coming, with higher numbers of drivers to the road's southern end in Maurice River Township. For the short term, increased trooper coverage is the best line of defense against preventable accidents. Drivers should also be warned that Route 55 is a dangerous place to speed, to tailgate, to drive while impaired, or to text.
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