Fewer fatal accidents seen on Long Island's roads

Long Islanders hitting the road for holiday travel can take comfort in this finding: Long Island's roads are seeing fewer fatal accidents.

In Nassau, where the drop has been particularly sharp, two of the safest years on record for highway fatalities occurred in 2006 and 2009. Last year, the county recorded fewer than 90 fatal crashes - among the lowest totals since the early 1960s, according to government statistics.

A national trend

The Nassau County numbers - drawn from statistics the county reported to federal and state governments, and reports in Newsday's archives - are similar to recently released U.S. Department of Transportation statistics that showed the nation had the lowest number of traffic fatalities in 2009 of any year since 1950. There were fewer deaths in 41 states last year, including a drop in New York State, the federal agency reported.

In Nassau County, there were 88 traffic fatalities in 2009 and 84 fatalities in 2006. The last time the county recorded such low totals was 1961, the data shows.

The drop in Suffolk County was not as pronounced as that in Nassau. Still, traffic fatalities in Suffolk in 2009 declined to lows rarely seen since the early 1960s.

Last year, Suffolk County had 149 fatal crashes. The federal and state statistics, supplemented by news accounts in Newsday's archives, show that there have been only five years since 1961 with fewer than 150 fatalities. Suffolk had 157 fatal crashes in 2007.

Many factors

While traffic safety experts do not agree on what is making highways less deadly, they do agree that it isn't just one thing.

"I think there are whole number of factors," said David Swarts, commissioner of the state Department of Motor Vehicles. "Obviously enforcement, tougher alcohol-related laws, graduated licenses."

Public education programs over the years aimed at increasing seat-belt usage have paid off, Swarts said, because the state has a 90 percent compliance rate for seat belts. "People are wearing seat belts every single time they're in a car."

A statewide survey of seat belt usage, conducted at 200 locations in 20 counties, is done annually by the University at Albany's Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research, DMV officials said.

One of the signs that motorists perhaps have gotten the message about seat-belt safety is the statistic showing that across Long Island, tickets issued for not wearing seat belts have declined. Officers wrote 12,000 fewer such tickets in 2008 than in 2006, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

In addition, law enforcement has cracked down on speeding and on drivers impaired by alcohol or drugs on Long Island during the past three years, according to statistics kept by the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

In Nassau County, while police issued 2,600 fewer total tickets between 2006 and 2008, speeding tickets grew as a percent of overall tickets written, increasing from 10.4 percent in 2006 to 12 percent in 2008, the most recent figures available.

Similarly, the total number of tickets issued for impaired driving rose by more than 800, from 4,626 in 2006 to 5,433 in 2008, according to state statistics.

Beefed-up enforcement was evident in Suffolk County, too, where the total number of tickets written by police increased for three straight years - from 141,686 in 2004 to 212,127 in 2007 - before falling in 2008. Tickets issued for impaired driving rose by more than 860 between 2004 and 2008 in Suffolk, according to the state.

"People get a ticket and go to court, and it's $250 plus a surcharge," said William Bond, executive director of Empire Safety Council in Smithtown, which provides state-approved driving courses. "That's a substantial amount of money. People are aware that these fines are quite high."

Safer cars

Kim Stewart of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a Virginia-based nonprofit research organization funded by auto insurers, said the roads are safer because cars are safer. From electronic stability control, which helps drivers maintain traction in slick or wet conditions, to side air bags, cars are built and marketed with safety in mind, she said. "Manufacturers are building vehicles to perform well in government crash tests."

With David Cassidy, Dorothy Levin, Laura Mann and Iris Quigley