It's no secret.
As the state works to improve the safety and traffic flow on Interstate 93 in Southern New Hampshire, there has been a steady increase in motor vehicle accidents along the route.
A 19.8-mile section of the highway from Salem to Manchester is undergoing an $800 million widening to help reduce what has been a substantial number of accidents in recent years.
But that work may be coming at a cost of a different kind.
Ever since construction began in 2006, there has been a steady rise in crashes on that stretch, also known as "the I-93 Corridor," according to state statistics.
While there were an average of 269 accidents a year along that section from 2000 to 2005, 330 crashes occurred in 2006 and 395 in 2007, according to the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.
Complete data for 2008 and 2009 was not available, but a study by the state Traffic Management Center in Concord showed that just near Exit 5 in Londonderry alone, there were 134 accidents in the winter and spring of 2009.
Windham fire Chief Tom McPherson said his department has been responding to more calls on I-93 ever since the project began. While some of the incidents are car fires, the majority are crashes.
"We've had some serious accidents since the construction," he said. "We have definitely seen an increase in calls for service."
Much of the work is currently taking place at Exit 3 in Windham, which began in 2008 and includes bridge, off-ramp, on-ramp and mainline construction, and is not expected to be done until late 2015 or early 2016. The entire project is slated for completion in 2020, and it's hoped there will be fewer accidents and safer traveling conditions once it is finished.
DOT spokesman Bill Boynton said it is difficult to say whether the rise in accidents on I-93 is directly related to the construction as opposed to a general increase in traffic.
"We all know the stretch of road has exceeded capacity for quite a few years," he said. "There are more people on the road."
Any time there is more traffic, there are bound to be more accidents, Boynton said. And when one crash occurs, there is always a chance that another will occur when traffic is already traveling slowly through a construction area.
"There is always the rubber-necking risk," he said.
Since I-93 was built nearly 50 years ago, the average traffic volume has increased more than 600 percent to about 115,000 vehicles passing through Salem each day, according to the DOT. That number is expected to soar to 140,000 by 2020.
Traffic back-ups have become a daily problem, and chain-reaction crashes sometimes occur along the heavily traveled route. Electronic signs offer traffic warnings.
The number of accidents occurring near the construction was not available.
Two of the most serious crashes in recent years happened only a week apart in Derry and Londonderry.
A nearly 60-vehicle pileup shut down the northbound side of the interstate between Exits 3 and 4 in Derry on a snowy morning in January 2009. The incident spurred a major rescue and cleanup that took four hours and required emergency help from nine towns.
While more than 100 people required medical evaluations, only 15 were taken to the hospital for injuries that included broken legs and lacerations. The chain-reaction accident was caused by a crash between a commercial truck and a charter school bus transporting a group of Boy Scouts.
Nine days later, whiteout conditions led to a 22-car pileup on the southbound side north of Exit 5 in Londonderry. Several people were taken to the hospital, but there were no serious injuries.
While no one was killed in the two pileups, there have been plenty of fatal crashes along the corridor over the years, though most accidents involve either few or no injuries.
In one of the most recent crashes, a couple dodged serious injury when a sport utility vehicle towing a camper crashed in Salem on Aug. 5. The SUV and camper flipped over, colliding with a tractor-trailer hauling a forklift.
Traffic was backed up for miles as an emergency crew had to free the man and woman by cutting the SUV's roof. The tractor-trailer driver was not injured.
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