Massachusetts Moves to Stop Wrong-Way Drivers
The deaths and injuries on Route 1 have finally pushed the state to act — and the technology to prevent the next tragedy already exists.
The stretch of Route 1 running through Lynnfield, Saugus, and Peabody is a road most North Shore residents know well. It's a commuter artery, a late-night errand run, a shortcut home. On two mornings this spring, just weeks apart, it became the scene of tragedies that shook an entire region — and may ultimately change how Massachusetts fights one of its most persistent road safety failures.
The first crash came at 2:04 a.m. on May 6. Massachusetts State Police Trooper Kevin Trainor, 30, a Salem native and three-year veteran of the force assigned to the Danvers Barracks, had just finished his shift when word came in about a wrong-way driver heading south in the northbound lanes of Route 1. Trainor responded without hesitation. Minutes later, his unmarked SUV was struck head-on by the wrong-way driver, Hernan Marrero, 50, of Roslindale. Both men were killed. Trainor left behind a fiancée, a mother, a sister, and three brothers. Thousands of fellow officers filled the streets of Salem to attend his funeral.
Then, on May 31, it happened again on the same road.
Just before 2 a.m., a trooper from the Danvers Barracks — a member of the same recruit training class as Trainor, and one of his pallbearers — spotted a pickup truck traveling south in the northbound lanes on Route 1 in Peabody. He and fellow troopers moved to intercept the vehicle. The pickup slammed into the trooper's marked cruiser. The trooper suffered non-life-threatening injuries and is recovering at home. The driver, Lucas Gustavo Brajak DeAlmeida Benedetto, 41, of Newburyport, was charged with OUI, negligent operation, and driving the wrong way on a state highway.
Two crashes. The same highway. The same deadly hour of the morning. Within a month of each other.
The State Responds
On Wednesday, Governor Maura Healey stood outside the Danvers State Police Barracks — where Trainor had worked, where his colleagues still report for duty — and announced what she called a comprehensive, multi-year initiative to detect and prevent wrong-way driving across Massachusetts.
The announcement carried a certain urgency that was personal, not just political. Before Healey even took the podium, the technology the state was rolling out had already intercepted a wrong-way driver that morning.
"This morning on the way up, I got word from MassDOT and the State Police that one of these very new technologies that we implemented actually stopped a wrong-way driver on the road this morning," Healey told reporters. "So already, we know this technology matters and it means something."
The governor spoke directly of the human cost behind the policy: Trainor, Gloucester teenager Chris Dailey, and Endicott Police Sergeant Jeremy Cole — all killed by wrong-way drivers in Massachusetts in recent years. Family members of those victims stood alongside her.
"I want every resource, every tool, every technology deployed, used, here in Massachusetts on our roadways to prevent and stop wrong-way driving," Healey said. "I don't want any family to ever again be woken up in the middle of the night by the police, or get a knock on their door telling them that their loved one has been killed by a wrong-way driver."
What the Plan Actually Does
The initiative targets more than 500 high-risk locations across the state where drivers are most likely to enter a roadway in the wrong direction. It is structured as a five-phase strategy, combining immediate safety upgrades with longer-term infrastructure investments.
The centerpiece of the plan is technology. MassDOT intends to retrofit approximately 430 existing signalized intersections and mainline camera systems with wrong-way detection capabilities. Those systems will identify wrong-way vehicle movements in real time and send immediate alerts to transportation officials and law enforcement — potentially giving troopers the precious seconds needed to redirect traffic or intercept a driver before a collision occurs. The detection systems will also connect to illuminated signs equipped with flashing LEDs designed to warn the wrong-way driver before they fully enter a highway.
Installations are scheduled throughout 2026 and 2027. When complete, Massachusetts aims to have one of the strongest wrong-way prevention and detection programs in the country, according to state officials.
The plan is not built from scratch. MassDOT has been operating a smaller pilot program since November 2022, testing high-tech detection systems at 16 locations. The results were encouraging: between the program's launch and January 2025, the pilot recorded 205 wrong-way events with a self-correction rate of 56 percent — meaning more than half the drivers who triggered the alert turned around on their own before encountering another vehicle.
The North Shore at the Center
For North Shore communities, the initiative hits close to home in more ways than one.
State Sen. Joan Lovely (D-Salem), who represents the communities at the heart of both crashes, was unequivocal about the stakes. "Our district has felt the cost of wrong-way driving in the most painful way, with the loss of Trooper Kevin Trainor and a second trooper struck on the same stretch of Route 1 weeks later," she said. "This plan reflects the prevention we fought for in the Senate's FY2027 budget, and I will keep pushing to bring these safety measures to corridors like Route 1 so other families are spared this grief."
State Rep. Hannah Bowen (D-Beverly) echoed that sentiment: "Here on the North Shore, we have felt the impact of wrong-way drivers, and we welcome these important upgrades to prevent future tragedies statewide."
Danvers, notably, is already among the communities where new wrong-way signage is being installed. State Rep. Sally Kerans (D-Danvers) said the town is part of the early wave of improvements. "Danvers is among those communities where new signage to prevent wrong-way crashes is being installed," she said. "We will use every tool — and create new ones if necessary — to prevent further loss of life from wrong-way crashes on our roads."
State Police Superintendent Colonel Geoffrey Noble noted that his department has responded to 680 reports of wrong-way driving across Massachusetts in just the last two years — and that Danvers ranks among the top 10 communities for such calls.
A Crisis in Numbers
The statistics behind wrong-way driving in Massachusetts are sobering. According to AAA Northeast, 5,506 wrong-way crashes occurred in the state between 2018 and 2025, nearly 700 per year, resulting in 135 deaths. Nationwide, AAA data shows that fatal wrong-way crashes on divided highways nearly doubled between 2014 and 2023.
Wrong-way drivers generally fall into three categories: confused or disoriented motorists, impaired drivers, and, in some cases, those with suicidal intent. Impaired driving was a factor in the Peabody crash — the suspect driver faces OUI charges. The cause of the Lynnfield crash that killed Trainor has not been publicly disclosed.
Connecticut has deployed a similar detection system that state Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) has pointed to as a model, noting that it has stopped as many as 86 percent of wrong-way driving incidents where it has been installed. Tarr, who began pushing for expanded wrong-way legislation after Gloucester's Chris Dailey was killed last summer, said the need for action is beyond dispute. "We saw the tragic loss of Trooper Kevin Trainor, who sacrificed his life to save others," he said. "We see this continuing to happen, and we know that when a driver doesn't self-correct, the results can be catastrophic."
A Promise to Keep
In Salem, Trainor's memory is still fresh. His mother, Barbara, spoke publicly in the days after the Peabody crash — reliving the worst moment of her life as she learned a trooper who had walked behind her son's casket had just narrowly survived a strikingly similar crash on the same road. "I just, like, burst into tears," she said. "It was like I relived the whole thing in my head all over again."
She reached out to the injured trooper personally. "Kevin was there protecting him," she said, "made sure he was okay so his mom doesn't have to go through what I just did."
That is the human weight behind the policy announcements and budget amendments and installation schedules. For the communities of the North Shore — Salem, Danvers, Lynnfield, Peabody, Beverly, Gloucester — this is not an abstract road safety debate. The cost has already been paid, in grief no technology can undo.
What the new program offers is the possibility that the next wrong-way driver triggers a flashing sign and a real-time alert instead of a head-on collision at 2 a.m. That the next trooper who responds doesn't become a statistic. That the next family doesn't get the knock on the door.
Massachusetts is moving. The question now is how fast.
MassDOT is scheduled to continue wrong-way detection technology installations throughout 2026 and 2027 at more than 430 locations statewide, with additional infrastructure improvements ongoing.
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