Over the past few weeks, Newsday has presented a 12-part series on dangerous driving on Long Island. The paper’s analysis is thorough and presents good explanations as to why Long Island ranks among the worst areas for traffic crashes, injuries and deaths in New York State. Based on the series, here are steps government entities should do to reduce the toll in life and limb exacted by driving on Long Island:

County and NY State DOTs:

· Design roads better, apply traffic calming more widely, and increase pedestrian safety programs- Widening roads to speed up traffic only makes them more dangerous. Traffic calming is generally more successful in making roads safer for motorists and pedestrians, but still sparsely applied on Long Island. Moreover, regulations that control basic pedestrian infrastructure are unreasonable. According to Newsday, NYS DOT only installs a pedestrian signal and crosswalk on state roads if there is a minimum of 100 pedestrian per hour over a four-hour period. This standard is unreasonable for many Long Island villages, and should be lowered.

· Reduce car dependency- The more cars, the more congestion, the more crashes and the more traffic fatalities. Increasing mass transit service and building bike lanes can reduce the number of cars on the road and decrease traffic fatalities.

Municipalities:

· Promote better land use/master plans that discourage sprawl and extra driving — Newsday says Route 25 (Jericho Turnpike), Hempstead Turnpike and similar roads are the most dangerous roads on Long Island. They generally feature sprawling strip malls with numerous driveways to commercial parking lots. They have minimal medians, and no sidewalks. Better land use regulations that discourage sprawl through regulations, such as impact fees, can help reduce the number of dangerous sprawl roads on LI, and in turn reduce traffic fatalities.

State:

· Enact legislation that allows installation of red-light cameras on Long Island.

· Devote more money to traffic calming, cycling and pedestrian programs. According to the Surface Transportation Policy Project, NYS DOT only spends five tenths of one percent of its money on pedestrians and bicyclists (42 cents per person in NYC metro area). On LI, the amount should better reflect the high pedestrian death and injury toll.

Police:

· Better enforce traffic laws: Over the past few years, traffic enforcement - measured through ticket issuance for drunk driving, speeding and other infractions - in Suffolk has dropped, and remained flat in Naussau. Enforcement is vital to reducing traffic deaths. According to Newsday, an aggressive DWI enforcement campaign "has been credited with significantly cutting the number of drunk driving fatalities in the past few decades."

District Attorneys:

· Hand out stricter penalties to bad drivers – statistics show that the worst drivers present abiding road dangers. Newsday reports that 16% of drivers involved in fatal accidents had their license suspended or revoked previously. In 2000, 400 drivers were involved in fatal accidents, two-thirds survived, but only 63 received a ticket, and only 15 were punished with jail time.

The full, 12-day series can be found at http://www.newsday.com. 

MTR search facility and back issues:

Search our database of all past issues of Mobilizing the Region since Fall, 1994.

Go to index of all Mobilizing the Region back issues