meanwhile officials are targeting another stretch of New Jersey highway notorious for horrendous traffic and fatal crashes route one which has seen a spike in deadly car accidents in recent years the Middlsex County prosecutor's office is launching a program to get drivers to slow down and ditch their aggressive behaviors Raven Santana reports cars have gotten safer roadways have gotten safer and yet we see fatal crashes increasing over the last couple years uh and here in Middlesex County we think that it's time that we do something about it uh and find a way to stem the tide Sergeant Jonathan Berman of the Middlesex County prosecutor's office is spearheading a new Traffic Safety initiative in response to a recent Surge and fatal crashes in the county specifically on Route One the action plan includes identifying crash locations mapping High injury corridors and then proposing a series of actions designed to promote crash prevention it's really just a way to bring together all the different parties that you know are responsible for the roadways in Middlesex County through engineering enforcement and education efforts the initiative is part of the County's Vision zero program focused on directly addressing the rise in deadly car crashes with an emphasis on US Route 1 a vital and high volume roadway in the county the speed limit on Route 1 is 50 or 55 miles per hour depending on the section that you're in um we're routinely seeing vehicles in excess of 75 or 80 mph the data that we're getting shows it's not an insignificant percentage of The Travelers that are that are driving you know 50 60% greater than the posted speed limit it's just unacceptable and that has to come to an end the safety efforts come after the state announced a Statewide initiative to eliminate traffic deaths by 2040 since 2020 the county has reported more than 300 deaths on the roadways out of these 45 fatalities occurred on US Route so the most problematic area is on Route One between um parsonage Road right in front of Menlo Park Mall to Grand View Avenue that's where we see most of our serious accidents why is that you know with respect to parsonage I think it's because it's right after people are coming off the parkway they're coming flying off that offramp and they're coming right into a choke point where traffic is at a dead stop it's always backed up it's a very heavy merge and they're not expecting it in addition route one has a lot of business businesses along the highway a lot of driveways there are people pulling off the highway pulling onto the highway and when you factor in the high speeds at which people travel down Route One it leads to a lot of serious accidents Aaron Campbell is section chief of the crash investigation unit for the middlex County prosecutor's office she says the office has partnered with the New Jersey Division of highway traffic safety and the State Department of Transportation as well as officers from Woodbridge Edison New Brunswick North Brunswick South Brunswick and in Plainsboro police departments to collect data the department of highway and traffic safety has very generously given us a $230,000 grant that we'll be using to fund the project distracted driving is very very quickly rising to challenge it um and we see it all the time and most of the time people are lucky and it winds up in minor crashes but unfortunately sometimes it does wind up with a very significant or fatal crash Lieutenant Gary Holston of the South Brunswick Police Department is Vice President of the New Jersey police traffic Officers Association Holston has responded to many unfortunate crashes on Route One including the latest one occurring on Tuesday ultimately it involved four vehicles including the pickup truck which wound up overturning and uh I believe at least eight people went to the hospital Holston says education is key to preventing fatalities on Route One some people may get uh an educational pamphlet they may get a summons they may get both but this the goal of this isn't summonses the goal of this is to get the speeds down get driver behaviors under control Sergeant Burman says the enforcement period will start in the next couple of weeks for NJ Spotlight news on Raven Santana [Music]