Long Island's deadly crashes show need for safety awareness

Carnage from a fatal car crash Sunday evening on Sunrise Highway in East Massapequa proved so horrible that Nassau County police officers confronting the aftermath visited the department’s Peer Support Group.

Driver Patrice Huntley, 60, and his children Jeremiah, 10, and Hannah, 13, of Uniondale, were killed when the SUV they were riding in was struck by a vehicle allegedly driven at a “very high rate of speed” by a 32-year-old Lindenhurst man who survived. That auto flipped onto other vehicles. The collisions also seriously injured three other passengers, including Huntley's 18-year-old daughter, his 6-year-old granddaughter and a 14-year-old boy.

The Huntleys had been out to get ice cream “because Dad just got a new job," police said.

Consider it the same kind of calamity as when a mass shooter steals the lives of strangers for no reason, or when a suicide bomber strikes. In terrorist attacks the instant shock has an accompanying dose of outrage and indignance over the injustice of it. Here, the common reaction can be different, with the mind running straight to the phrase “car accident.” In neither case do thoughts and prayers prevent the next disaster.

Speeding, drunken driving and distracted driving remain the leading causes of deadly car crashes across the nation. Long Island in recent days had six deaths resulting from four crashes. These included an SUV striking and killing 77-year-old bicyclist Jong Hwan in his hometown of Hicksville, and the hit-and-run death of Lydia Ciminelli, 72, of Lake Ronkonkoma, fatally injured, while crossing Rosevale Avenue. 

Then, at 2:22 a.m. Monday, a Nissan Pathfinder collided with a parked car on the roadside with flashers in use, killing 6-year-old Katerine Vanegas-Hernandez of West Hempstead and injuring several others. Driver Jorge Bonilla Gutierrez, 18, faces charges of manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, assault, DWI and driving without a license. He allegedly had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system when he sped through an intersection and lost control.

Stopping automotive atrocities is at once a law-and-order issue and a public-consciousness issue. The message must get across that every time you drive, you command a lethal weapon. Those determined to be responsible for causing death and injury must be aggressively prosecuted on homicide charges. Lawmakers and prosecutors should be laser-focused on penalizing all perpetrators.

That said, mindsets must change. Some motorists let the deluxe confines of their high-tech mobile cribs convince them they are removed from consequences. Perhaps license renewals should require a refresher in defensive driving if only to remind motorists we all are accountable to each other. 

Long ago public service ads would urge motorists: “Drive scared.” Anyone with sense, especially a parent, already does. But fear on the road won't be enough to protect the innocent from the mean, reckless and distracted who are behind the wheel. The solutions ultimately rest with those who shirk the rules and those assigned to enforce them.