There are moments when a room grows still, not from wisdom but from the absence of it. One such moment came on April 23, during the House debate on SB 559, when Rep. Thomas Walsh, R-Hooksett, who chairs the Transportation Committee, rose to speak.
“It is against the law to run over pedestrians,” he said, “and against the law to run bicycles off the road, even though it’s sometimes very tempting.”
The chamber laughed.
It is a curious thing to hear laughter where there ought to be care. SB 559 concerns the setting of speed limits on local roads — a modest, practical effort to make those roads safer for everyone, and particularly for the people who use them on foot and on bicycles. To treat that subject lightly is not merely a lapse in taste; it suggests a misunderstanding of the matter at hand.
Speed is not an abstraction. It is measurable, and so are its consequences. As speed increases, a driver’s field of vision narrows, reaction time shortens, and the force of impact grows. These are not opinions; they are the plain facts of physics. For that reason, places where people and cars meet closely — parks, neighborhoods, civic spaces — often choose lower limits. The National Mall in Washington, for instance, is posted at 15 miles per hour. Not as a flourish of bureaucracy, but as a recognition that where people gather, caution must lead.
Across the country, communities that have reduced speeds on local streets have seen fewer deaths and injuries. The pattern is steady and well documented. New Hampshire has not yet followed this course in a consistent way. SB 559 offered a chance, however small, to begin.
The numbers are not large, but they are not abstract either. In 2025, five people riding bicycles were killed on New Hampshire roads, up from one the year before. In 2024, four people riding bicycles were killed on New Hampshire roads, also up from one the year before. Nationally, fatalities among people on bicycles have risen sharply in recent years. Overall traffic deaths in the state have climbed over the past decade as well. Each figure is a measure of something that cannot be replaced.
On a Wednesday afternoon two summers ago, a 71-year-old man was riding his bicycle along Central Street in Manchester. It was an ordinary day. A driver struck him and left the scene. He was taken to the hospital and did not survive. His name was not widely reported. His errand, whatever it was, went unfinished.
There is a tendency, when speaking of policy, to drift upward into generalities. But the work of a transportation committee is grounded in particulars: in speeds, distances, streets, and the lives that move along them. It asks, at minimum, a familiarity with the evidence and a regard for those most exposed to harm.
Remarks that make light of people riding bicycles do not help that work. They cloud it. They suggest that what is, in fact, a question of public safety is instead a matter for amusement.
New Hampshire’s motto is plainspoken. It speaks of freedom and of its cost. The people who walk and ride on its roads should not be asked to bear more of that cost than is necessary. They should be able to expect that those entrusted with their safety understand the tools at hand and use them with care.
A lower speed on a local road is a small thing. It is also, at times, the difference between a close call and a death, between an errand completed and one that is not. A committee charged with overseeing the safety of those roads ought to keep that distinction clearly in mind.
Jennie Chamberlain is a member of the Hanover Selectboard.