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After spike in fatal crashes, NH announces ‘zero tolerance’ on I-95 during Thanksgiving

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After spike in fatal crashes, NH announces ‘zero tolerance’ on I-95 during Thanksgiving


From Seabrook to Portsmouth, a “zero-tolerance zone” along the I-95 corridor will be enforced this holiday season by state police. The initiative is part of a state directive to reduce unsafe, distracted and impaired driving after a recent uptick in serious and sometimes fatal crashes. 

All drivers pulled over on I-95 in the Seacoast this holiday season, regardless of the reason for the stop, will receive a ticket as part of the state campaign, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu announced Tuesday in Concord. 

The state’s holiday season zero-tolerance policy on local stretches of the interstate comes in advance of Thanksgiving. Enforcement measures and increased state police patrols will begin Wednesday. 

“If you’re pulled over on I-95, you’re getting a ticket. That’s it,” Sununu said Tuesday.

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Sununu and representatives of state police agencies from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire spoke to the spike in crashes each state has seen this year and the New England-wide police effort to make cross-border holiday season travel safer for all motorists. 

Fatal crashes increase during days around Thanksgiving

Five people have died in crashes on I-95 in New Hampshire this year, several of which occurred with at least one vehicle crossing the median into oncoming traffic. 

Three recent Seacoast I-95 crashes resulted in three deaths and serious injuries to multiple motorists and passengers, which prompted the New Hampshire Department of Transportation to begin planning to add median barriers to the “most critical sections” of I-95. The project is still in the design phase and cost estimates have not been released, but construction will start in the summer of 2025, a Department of Transportation spokesperson said previously. 

Since 2019, five people have been killed and nine more have been injured in all crashes on major New Hampshire roads during Thanksgiving week, with impairment playing a role in four of the crashes, state police reported. The agency defines the Thanksgiving period as the Wednesday through the Sunday during the holiday week.

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From 2019 to 2023, 2,183 non-fatal crashes occurred on New Hampshire roads during the Thanksgiving holiday periods.

“This is a really important story. This isn’t sensational. People have been dying over the past few weeks at really alarming numbers,” Sununu said Tuesday. “The roads haven’t changed. The conditions haven’t necessarily changed. We’ve actually had pretty good weather, other than today, but pretty good weather out there. It’s all about driver behavior.”

The night before Thanksgiving has come to be called “Drinksgiving” and “Blackout Wednesday,” according to New Hampshire State Police spokesperson Tyler Dumont, as crowds descend upon hometown bars and drinking establishments in the hours leading up to the holiday. 

“We are particularly concerned this year given the recent troubling trends on our roads across the state,” Dumont said.

2024 fatal crashes in NH on track to far exceed 2023

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For the year to date, 127 people have died on major New Hampshire roads in fatal car crashes, according to state police Lt. Christopher Storm. That ties the entire death count from all 2023 crashes in New Hampshire, with over a month to go before the new year and without poor weather conditions having fully set in yet.

State police conducted a saturation patrol on I-95 on Wednesday, Nov. 20, with over 200 cars being pulled over. Hours after the patrol period ended, a 26-year-old Merrimack resident was sent to the hospital with life-threatening injuries after a series of multiple-vehicle crashes on I-95 in Greenland.

“Drivers, take note. If you are excessively speeding, driving recklessly or impaired on our roads, you will face consequences,” Storm said Tuesday. “Just a moment of carelessness can have lifelong repercussions for everybody involved.”

The New Hampshire Department of Transportation has recently installed 276 reflective markers around the area of the recent Seacoast I-95 serious and fatal crashes. The department is partnering with the state Department of Safety on safety messaging for drivers, with electronic billboards telling drivers to slow down, remain sober and stay alert during their travel.

Between 2018 and 2022, per data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, nearly 500 drivers in the United States were involved in fatal crashes on Thanksgiving Eve, Dumont said Tuesday.

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On Thanksgiving Day 2022, Drew Ceppetelli, a 21-year-old Barrington resident and student-athlete at Salve Regina University, was killed in a single-vehicle crash at the Portsmouth traffic circle. All six passengers in that speeding vehicle were transported to local hospitals after the driver lost control, skidded across the roadway, flipped several times and occupants were ejected from the car. 

Northwood resident Tyler Troy, the impaired driver at the wheel during the incident, recently pleaded guilty to negligent homicide while under the influence and four other charges, resulting in a minimum six-year state prison sentence. 

In 2024, 10 motor vehicle operators under the age of 21 have been killed in crashes on New Hampshire’s major roadways, up from three deaths among the same demographic this time last year, according to state police data. 

For all of 2022, a total of 146 people died on New Hampshire roads in fatal motor vehicle accidents, according to state police data.

Law enforcement officials from the four New England states on Tuesday urged drivers to buckle up, stay sober, remain awake while traveling, put down phones and handheld devices while driving, and to report unsafe and distracted drivers they view on the road. 

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Anyone planning to drink this holiday week, and in the future should always utilize a designated driver to get home afterward, the speakers in Concord said. Doing so could save lives.

“The ‘zero-tolerance’ policy that I’m really driving into effect over the holiday season is to bring some awareness, to make people wake up. (It’s) to make people realize, ‘Holy cow, this is real. It could be me, my kid, my neighbor, my dad.’ It could be anybody out there. It’s an absolute zero-tolerance policy on the I-95 corridor, where we’ve just had over the past few weeks an inordinate number of unnecessary crossings, specifically into the median,” Sununu said.

New Hampshire State Police expect to increase their presence on state roads the entirety of this week with between 50 to 100 patrols, according to Storm.



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CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Driver seen driving across Windham, NH lawn late at night – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

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CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Driver seen driving across Windham, NH lawn late at night – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News


WINDHAM, N.H. (WHDH) – Police are searching for a person seen on camera driving across a lawn in Windham, New Hampshire.

Windham police say on April 25, around midnight, a driver plowed across a lawn on Trails Edge Road in Windham.

Police say the vehicle is believed to be a late 1990s-early 2000s Chevrolet Silverado, but the color in unknown due to the video being black and white.

A next-door neighbor says their driveway was just redone one day before the incident.

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“The boys came in the other morning. I was surprised I didn’t hear anything,” she said. “That’s not that bad but kind of scary, though. I just hope it never happens again.”

The incident is still under investigation.

(Copyright (c) 2026 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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Commission sets sights on UNESCO recognition for Mount Washington – NH Business Review

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Commission sets sights on UNESCO recognition for Mount Washington – NH Business Review


Ice coats instruments, buildings and rock fields atop Mount Washington. The peak’s extreme weather is one reason members of the Mount Washington Commission say they are seeking potential UNESCO World Heritage Site status for the peak. (Photo by Charlie Peachey, courtesy of the Mount Washington Observatory)

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Egypt’s Great Pyramids, Arizona’s Grand Canyon … and New Hampshire’s own Mount Washington?

At their April meeting, the group of institutions that steward the Northeast’s tallest mountain voted, 9-1, to take a preliminary step toward pursuing UNESCO World Heritage Site designation for the peak. The process may take years to decades, but if it is successful, Mount Washington could become the first site in New England to rank on the internationally recognized list.

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The possibility requires unique considerations, commission members said, including the need it would create to manage increased visitation that is already straining the summit’s alpine ecosystem and infrastructure.

Mount Washington Commission Chair Rob Kirsch believes the designation would be a boon for the mountain, bringing in not only more visitors but also more funding to invest in making the peak more resilient to traffic. Kirsch said he sees the application as a chance to showcase the wonder of Mount Washington at a grander scale.

“It will lead to an improved experience for people, generally,” Kirsch said. “It will give the state something to really be proud of.”

A property must meet at least one of 10 criteria to be considered for World Heritage Site status, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Mount Washington could invoke several categories in its application, including one for sites that “contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance.”

There are many steps before Mount Washington could potentially be added to that list. The motion approved at the April 17 meeting of the Mount Washington Commission was the first: At that meeting, the commission approved pursuing “Tentative List” status for the mountain. One site is selected from that national list each year for submission to the United Nations World Heritage Committee.

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To move ahead, the application must receive support from the federal government. The commission has engaged with federal officials, and U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has been supportive of the project, commission members said.

“Mount Washington’s unique natural environment, scientific significance and rich history deserve global recognition,” Shaheen said in a statement to the Bulletin. “I am proud to support the Commission as they work to have our region’s most iconic peak designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”

From here, Kirsch said, the process may take decades. UNESCO designation typically boosts visitorship to a site, and proponents generally point to the associated regional economic boost as a benefit of the status. But the list has also been criticized as contributing to overtourism that can degrade sites or harm the communities around them. While it can boost public awareness of a place, there is no funding attached to the status itself.

The Mount Washington Commission is guided by a 2022 master plan for the mountain’s stewardship and conservation. In November 2025, the commission reviewed preliminary results from an assessment conducted as part of that plan, showing that crowds and climate change were large factors in the strain on the summit’s delicate natural environment and aging infrastructure.

With significant investment, the summit could readily accommodate significant crowds, said Kirsch, who is also an environmental lawyer, former weather observer at the Mount Washington Observatory, and a member of the observatory’s board of trustees. It’s not clear yet where the money for those investments will come from, but Kirsch said he hoped the UNESCO designation would help.

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“You can bring as many people as you want to Mount Washington as long as you make sufficient infrastructure investment to protect the environment,” he said.

The commission is still waiting for more results from the summit’s environmental assessment, but Kirsch said the boost to visitation would not affect the environment if the commission adheres to the guidelines laid out in the Master Plan. Rather, he said, the investments he hopes designation would help secure could help prevent any danger from overcrowding and ensure the mountain’s environment is protected.

He added that the benefit of a UNESCO designation would go beyond the businesses operating on the mountain — which include the Mount Washington Auto Road and the Mount Washington Cog Railway — to boost others throughout the North Country.


This story was originally produced by the New Hampshire Bulletin, an independent local newsroom that allows NH Business Review and other outlets to republish its reporting.

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Investigation into woman’s 2007 death resolved, NH officials say

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Investigation into woman’s 2007 death resolved, NH officials say


New Hampshire authorities said Thursday that they have resolved their investigation into the death of a woman nearly 20 years ago.

On Feb. 24, 2007, 25-year-old Carrie Hicks was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head at the Acworth home of Wayne Ring, who was found alive in the same room with a single gunshot wound to the head.

Ring died at the age of 57 on May 26, 2012.

Investigators officially determined Ring fatally shot Hicks before attempting to take his own life.

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People who knew Hicks and Ring told authorities that they had formed a suicide “pact” and openly discussed suicide.

“Witness testimony revealed that Ms. Hicks had specifically instructed Mr. Ring to shoot her twice so she would not be left alive,” the office of Attorney General John Formella wrote in a press release.

A review of the autopsy report this year, along with a forensic reconstruction of bloodstain patterns, demonstrated that it was “medically and physically impossible” for Hicks to have fired the second shot she sustained, officials said. They added that, beyond a reasonable doubt, she could not have inflicted either injury on herself, and that Ring fatally shot Hicks before turning the gun on himself.

Formella said that if Ring were alive, there would be sufficient evidence to prosecute a first-degree murder case against him.

“We hope that the conclusion of this investigation brings a measure of clarity and peace to the loved ones of Carrie Hicks,” he said in a statement. “This resolution underscores the commitment of the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit. By thoroughly re-examining the forensic evidence, witness statements, and autopsy records, our investigators have finally established the truth behind this tragic loss of life.”

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