Merrimack Road Worker, Others Commemorated in Memorial Wall
WASHINGTON, April 09–Transportation officials unveiled a new National Workforce Memorial wall in nearby Maryland on Tuesday that recognizes people who have been killed in highway work zones, including a worker from Merrimack.
Daniel Carswell was killed in 1997 while working on the Everett Turnpike, according to Bill Boynton, the public information officer for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. Carswell’s name is now listed with approximately 750 other road workers and other people on a 24 foot-long wall reminiscent of the Vietnam Memorial.
Boynton said Carswell, a 13-year veteran of the Transportation Department, worked in the Department of Turnpikes in Merrimack. An elderly driver hit him while he was picking up trash on the median near Exit 5 in Nashua. Carswell, who was 33, died immediately, leaving a wife, Cheryl, and daughter, Nicole.
Boynton submitted Carswell’s name to the Fredericksburg, Va.-based American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA) last November after hearing about its plans to build a wall recognizing people killed in highway work zone accidents.
ATSSA represents the segment of the roadway industry that maintains and installs safety features such as signs, pavement marking, guardrails and lighting.
“I suggested Daniel because his death was very traumatic and something you don’t want to repeat,” Boynton said. Work zone danger, Boynton said, “is an issue that I hear about all the time from workers.”
Boynton hopes the wall will increase awareness of work zones and make drivers more cautious when driving near them.
The number of work zone fatalities has increased every year and is likely to continue to increase as the number of highway projects rises, according to James Baron, the communications director for ATSSA.
In 2000, 1,093 people died in work zones, up from 868 in 1999 and 789 in 1995, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. More than three-fourths of them last year were drivers. In addition, according to the NHTSA, approximately 40,000 crashes occur in work zones annually.
“Most roadways were built in the 1950s,” Baron said at a ceremony to unveil the wall. “They need constant attention, and will need more. Motorists should be aware that if they think they’re seeing a lot of work zones now, they haven’t seen anything yet.”
Most of the names on the memorial wall are those of highway workers, even though they represent a minority of those killed in work zones. “We have so many workers [listed] because we look after our own,” Boynton said. People, he said, can submit the names of loved ones who died in work zone accidents for inclusion on the wall.
People on the wall died as long ago as the 1940s, according to Baron.
The wall is made of the same reflecting sheeting that road signs are made of. Names are raised so that loved ones can make rubbings of the names. Each name has a symbol next to it to signify whether the deceased was a child, a law enforcement officer, a motorist, a pedestrian, a public safety official or a work zone worker.
Jan Miller, the vice president of sales for Eastern Metal/USA-Sign, the Elmira, New York-based company that built the wall, estimates that it cost $8,000 to $10,000. The money came from transportation organizations that sponsored it.
The wall was unveiled at a ceremony with various transportation organizations and families of the deceased. The unveiling took place in College Park, alongside a highway work zone, as part of the third annual National Work Zone Safety Week.
After Tuesday’s ceremony the wall was shipped to Pennsylvania for display. It will later travel to New York, Vermont, Washington, South Carolina, Illinois and Missouri. Boynton said he hopes the wall will come to New Hampshire at some point.
A bill moving through the New Hampshire legislature would name the Merrimack patrol facility where Carswell worked after him. The bill, introduced by Rep. Marlene DeChane, D-Barrington, passed the House and is awaiting Senate action.
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
