Safer driving, safer roads

Suffolk County leads the state in deaths caused by vehicle crashes. There were 113 such people killed in 2020.

The 78 deaths in Nassau County were the third-highest in New York. That’s not a contest any county wants to win.

Regionally, Suffolk has only the fourth-largest population in the state, and Nassau the sixth-largest, but the more populous counties — Kings, Queens and New York — have considerable public transportation and road traffic moving so slowly that crashes are often less likely to be fatal.

But compared to the entire nation, where one of every 8,557 people died in a traffic accident last year, Suffolk and Nassau are both about 50% safer.

So what? It’s still not good enough, nowhere near.

What makes the fatality statistics on Long Island so regrettable is what we see every day with our own eyes: Dangerous, careless, distracted and daredevil driving is killing us.

Newsday reported earlier this week on data compiled and analyzed by the Albany-based Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research. The numbers are unarguable: Human-related factors, including speed, were a factor in 85% of the fatalities in Suffolk and 91% in Nassau. Speed is the most frequent contributing factor, with alcohol consumption, failure to yield right of way, and driver inattention also high on the list.

Experts say there are two ways to reduce these fatalities: Make drivers better or roads safer, but those are not equal choices. Advocates for safer roads often favor expensive fixes that will increase safety for bikers, pedestrians and those in motor vehicles, but that cost a fortune and will take a long time. And those fixes often involve purposely slowing and diverting traffic flow or widening roadways, a hard sell on a frenzied Island.

Where re-engineering roads is a practical way to increase safety, let's do it. But on an Island where we can’t even keep our roads paved and our potholes filled, it’s highly unlikely that the answer to ending Long Island's status atop the traffic accidents and fatalities list is going to be a massive redesign and reconstruction of our highways and byways.

It’s easier, cheaper, and immediately effective to just drive better.

We need to focus on handling a killing machine weighing several tons. Slow down, put the phone down, pick a lane and stay in it as much as possible. We need to drive only when fully sober, stop our own road rage before it starts, and not respond to the anger of others. And use seat belts.

The police need to enforce the laws with more patrols and more tickets. Judges need to take away licenses, if not cars, from the worst offenders. And friends, relatives, neighbors and acquaintances need to enforce good road manners by saying stop to those who drive dangerously.

The problem is our driving. Let’s fix that.