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Suffolk DA to crack down on reckless drivers

Urges officials not to allow students to leave campus during school day

By REID J. EPSTEIN | reid.epstein@newsday.com

1:20 PM EDT, April 17, 2008

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said Thursday that he will crack down on reckless drivers, charging them with misdemeanors and seizing their vehicles.

In an address to the Legislature's Public Safety Committee, Spota called for Suffolk high schools to not allow students to leave campuses during the school day, asked police departments to arrest for reckless driving motorists who are speeding or changing lanes dangerously and a redeployment of county and local police officers to combat unsafe drivers.

Spota said he will issue more charges of reckless driving, a misdemeanor that could lead to jail time. He said he will also seek to seize vehicles of those convicted of reckless driving.

He cited several gruesome accidents in which young Suffolk drivers going more than 100 mph wrecked cars on the county's highways and said education will be a key element of making the roads safer.

"Young inexperienced operators are often driving too fast and taking too many chances on our roadways," Spota said. "Too many of our teenage drivers are engaging in reckless driving habits that endanger not only themselves but driving public. "

Spota's address to legislators comes two weeks before May 1, when County Executive Steve Levy has promised to begin pulling county police from patrol duties on the Long Island Expressway and Sunrise Highway if the state does not begin funding them.

Levy's pledge, which he made in concert with Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, came in protest of the state budget's 2 percent funding cut to counties. State Police officers patrol expressways in all of the state except on Long Island and in New York City.

Spota, said that while he is "acutely aware" of the county's budget concerns, he does not favor removing officers from the highways. Harry Corbitt, the state newly-confirmed State Police superintendent, said Wednesday that he does not have troopers available to patrol Long Island.

"If we pull police off the expressways and there's nobody to cover it, that is a real recipe for disaster," Spota said.

Legislators, who later approved a resolution denoting May "Youth Traffic Safety Month," expressed their support for Spota's proposals. Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook) said the county needs more help from the state to keep its highways safe.

"The state has not given us any tools for a long, long time," he said. "They're dragging their feet with their archaic system in Albany and meanwhile people are dying here. It's wrong."

Legis. Lynne Nowick (R-St. James) said it is not only teenage drivers that wreak havoc on the county's highways.

"When they go into their 20s, there's no fear of speed," Nowick said. "I want them to be scared, I want them to think they'll lose their cars."

And Legis. Wayne Horsley (D-Babylon) compared the county's reckless drivers to armed combat.

"We need a war plan," he said. "It sounds like you're going to war against reckless driving and problems that exist throughout Suffolk County."

Legislators also questioned Dormer about a letter he sent to community groups last month stating that the police department will not be assigning officers to administer summer youth programs.

Dormer said the change will affect 21 officers at seven locations, though Legis. Daniel Losquadro (R-Nesconset) asserted the figure is much higher.