Father revisits road where daughter died

A driver hit Lauren Davis about 10:50 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2008, as she was crossing Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown after meeting with friends.

The 18-year-old died from her injuries 36 hours later - on New Year's Day 2009.

No charges were filed against the driver. Tests showed Lauren had no alcohol or drugs in her system, her parents said.

For Lauren's mother, Coleen Clark, 48, a Nassau County police officer, the death has meant no daughter going to a senior prom, no daughter graduating high school. She has watched Lauren's friends go off to college.

"I miss her every time I walk in the house, not having her run down the stairs, usually asking for money," the mother said with a smile.

Less than two weeks after the accident, her father, Mike, decided to go to the south side of the six-lane highway near where his daughter was hit.

There, just east of where the turnpike passes over Wantagh Parkway, Davis spotted what he believes is an obvious flaw in the roadway's design.

"It's a sight-distance issue" for motorists, said Davis, 51, a county public works employee.

The overpass creates a rise in the roadway, Davis said, and eastbound motorists - like the one who hit Lauren Davis - are driving on a downward slope as they approach the spot where she was crossing from south to north, near Loring Road.

"I went out there . . . put myself in the same location, and tried the same maneuver," Davis said, recalling how he tried to match his daughter's steps. "And the cars come over that hill so fast at a green light that you freeze. You don't know whether to keep going to the middle or retreat back to the curb. You have no time to think at all - and that's in the middle of the day when I went."

Mike Davis said he consulted a lawyer about the possibility of filing a lawsuit against the state, raising the issue of sight distance. He said he was advised that chances of a successful legal outcome were slim. The road remains unchanged from the day his daughter was struck, he said.