Law enforcement officials in Camden County announced a plan Monday to improve road safety in the wake of four fatal pedestrian motor-vehicle accidents since November.
The accidents all occurred in Waterford on the White Horse Pike, Route 30, a key east-west corridor that reaches 58 miles to Atlantic City, but starts in the more congested areas of Camden County. The plan will use $400,000 in state highway traffic funds to step up enforcement of safe driving with 14 police departments along the road.
“We have repeatedly seen deadly car crashes on the White Horse Pike and we are determined to reduce the number of lives lost because so many of these incidents can be prevented,” Camden County Prosecutor Grace MacAulay said at a news conference at a busy intersection on the road Monday. “And we have noticed a common theme in these crashes: distracted driving and disregarding the speed limit. Too often drivers are looking at their cell phones and ignoring the speed limit, resulting in catastrophe.”
There have been 11,251 crashes on the White Horse Pike since 2010 and 80 have been fatal, according to the prosecutor’s office. More than 7,000 of these crashes involved driver inattention or distracted driving and 692 involved unsafe speed, according to the state Department of Transportation.
“Over the past several months Waterford Township has experienced a sharp increase in pedestrian fatalities on the White Horse Pike including the tragic deaths of two small children, ages two and nine months,” Waterford Township Police Chief Daniel Cormaney said at the news conference. “There will be a noticeable increase in police presence, and we are asking everyone to be conscious of their surroundings while driving.”
A 59-year-old woman from the Atco section of Waterford was struck by a vehicle on the White Horse Pike last week and was hospitalized in critical condition, a county spokesman said.
One of the recent fatalities involved a Waterford police officer driving a squad car that fatally struck a 44-year-old man on the White Horse Pike just before 2:20 a.m. Thanksgiving morning.
There were eight fatal crashes on the state road in 2023, including five pedestrian deaths.
“This collaboration between municipalities along the White Horse Pike is a testament to our ongoing efforts to combat dangerous driving behaviors and improve pedestrian safety,” Michael J. Rizol Jr., director of the Division of Highway Traffic Safety, said in a statement.
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Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com.
