During World War II, Roe served in the United States Army. Roe served as a committeeman of Wayne from 1955 to 1956 and became the Mayor of Wayne Township in 1956, serving in that capacity until 1961. He also served on the Passaic CountyBoard of Chosen Freeholders from 1959 to 1963, and as Freeholder Director in 1962 and 1963.[2]
The former lawmaker was convicted of driving drunk when he crashed into a minivan in Rockaway Township, New Jersey in 1993, seriously injuring a woman and her 15-year-old daughter.
In January 2008 a bill was passed to name Route 23 after the former Congressman. Mothers Against Drunk Driving protested the plan to name the highway after a man who seriously injured two people while driving drunk. A spokesman stated that Governor Jon Corzine did not know about the accident when he signed the bill and that a second bill would have to be passed by the New Jersey Legislature to overturn the naming. Roe himself then requested that lawmakers repeal the legislation.[4][5]
^"Robert A. Roe, 90, Former Congressman And Wayne Mayor", The Beacon, July 14, 2014. Accessed November 16, 2021. "Born in Lyndhurst, he grew up in Wayne, where he was a parishioner of Holy Cross in the Mountain View section of the township. He was graduated from Pompton Lakes High School and attended Oregon State University in Corvallis, where he majored in engineering and later attended Washington State University in Pullman where he, majored in political science."
^ abcdFried, Joseph P. "Robert Roe, New Jersey Congressman Called ‘Mr. Jobs,’ Dies at 90", The New York Times, July 15, 2014. Accessed July 16, 2014. "Robert A. Roe, who as a congressman from New Jersey for 23 years played a key role in financing projects to expand the nation’s highway and mass transit systems and to combat water and ground pollution, died on Tuesday at his home in Green Pond, N.J."