Dangerous Roads newsletter: Find solutions to Long Island's dangerous roads

Are you interested in what solutions are on the table to make Long Island’s roads safer, and what has already been done? Have you got a burning question for an expert, or an observation you’d like to share?

Newsday’s Dangerous Roads Town Hall will be held Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Newsday’s studios at 6 Corporate Center Dr., Melville. Register here for this free event.

Alfonso Castillo, Newsday’s longtime transportation reporter and usual author of these newsletters, will host an expert panel to discuss solutions ranging from engineering to enforcement and education. Time will also be available at the end for audience questions.

The guests are Robert Sinclair, senior manager public affairs at AAA Northeast; Mary Tanner-Richter, deputy commissioner for traffic safety at the Department of Motor Vehicles; Rob Limoges, director of safety and mobility at the state Department of Transportation; Elissa Kyle, placemaking director at Vision Long Island; and Maj. Christopher Casale of the New York State Troopers.

The event is part of Newsday’s ongoing Dangerous Roads series.

Alfonso and I hope to see you there!

By the way, you can see all the articles in the project at newsday.com/dangerousroads, but here’s a brief rundown of some of them. 

• An interactive crash map and searchable fatal crash database for Long Island.
• What circumstances led to 15-year-old Amir Porterfield being hit and killed as he walked home from Copiague High School in 2023?
• A look at why Hempstead Village is Long Island's most dangerous area for pedestrians and what local leaders are doing about it.
• Long Island car crashes cost the region $3.4 billion annually in medical expenses, lost income, property damage and societal impacts.
• Nassau County has just 5.5 miles of dedicated, on-street bicycle lanes. We looked at one cyclist’s campaign to add more.
• Weak penalties for hit-and-runs may incentivize drivers to flee the scene after a crash. Victims' families are calling for stricter laws.
• Do police on Long Island write enough tickets for dangerous driving? Newsday compared the region to other areas of the state, adjusted for traffic.
• Unlicensed drivers are involved in 14% of fatal crashes on Long Island despite representing only 2% of drivers.
• During a 58-hour stretch in August 2023, 11 people died in seven crashes on Long Island, part of one of the deadliest months on the island's roads in over a decade.
• Aggressive driving rose dramatically after COVID-19, with devastating consequences.
• We crunched the numbers: the five intersections with the most serious-injury crashes on the Island are in Hicksville, Islandia, Stony Brook, Hempstead Village and Lindenhurst.
• Why does Long Island spend relatively little on local road maintenance?
• New York is one of just a handful of states that lists the drugs it is illegal to drive on. Prosecutors say that can make it difficult to charge drivers for drugged driving.

Can't make it to Wednesday's forum? Write in with how you'd improve safety on our streets at roads@newsday.com.

By Peter Gill

peter.gill@newsday.com