Road safety to improve at site of Smithtown tragedy

Eight months after a tragic traffic accident took the lives of three teenagers on Jericho Turnpike in Smithtown, the state Department of Transportation will unveil plans Thursday designed to improve safety on a ...

[darker]

H.S. kids shouldn't be running around outside of school on
lunch breaks. It is outrageous that lazy, stupid Long Island school admin's and parents permit this. They contribute a nasty form of "population control" by killing off their kids with such irresponsible practices.

[No Kidding]

Isn't it always the way. The "officials" wait for some horrible tragedy before they do anything about something so dangerous. I find that nobody sees things through with all the what ifs and what may bes. Nobody is thorough in their jobs these days.

[gee]

I went to High School in Queens, we were not allowed to leave until school was over. It should be the same here. Maybe they should not allow any student to drive to school. If they have jobs after school they should go home first.

[still confused]

Maybe if the whole country would stop trying to be their children's friend instead of being a parent many of our teen problems would be under control

[LIAM]

Maybe we should make our kids live in bubbles that way nothing can ever happen. When I was a kid I didnt wear a helmet on a while riding a bike, I walked up to the stores on my own, I went out on my lunch break from my sophmore year on. I lived and had fun! I agree with the changes they want to make with this horrible stretch of road but come on people. Enough with the making the kids into total wusses. Let them live and enjoy being young. Apparently some of you never did.

[lulu]

DOT wants to reduce the speed limit...Whoo Hooo...You can put any speed limit sign you want, and people will do any speed they want...Signs do nothing...

[KPer]

How come officials feel the need to call a press conference, how come they just don't fix it? Makes it look like an election year. Oh, I forgot, it is an election year!

[NYR94]

darker wrote:

H.S. kids shouldn't be running around outside of school on
lunch breaks. It is outrageous that lazy, stupid Long Island school admin's and parents permit this. They contribute a nasty form of "population control" by killing off their kids with such irresponsible practices.

They shouldn't be doing 80-85 mph regardless of what time of day it is. Speeding is ther real problem.

[Michael L]

How about borrowing 5 ft of land from the park department and making the lanes wider? Simple!!

[Serpico]

Natural Selection.

[intheno]

It's not just the idiot motorists that are dying on this stretch of roadway. Innocent drivers and passengers are getting killed.

This is arguably the worst engineered stretch of roadway on long island. Two high speed lanes, no barrier, and no where for the police to shoot radar effectively...all a recipe for disaster.

It's a shame it took 15 years and how many deaths for the state to do something...and we still don't know what they are going to do. Probably reduce the speed to 45 MPH, and that will be it.

[Informed Poster]

LIAM wrote:

Maybe we should make our kids live in bubbles that way nothing can ever happen. When I was a kid I didnt wear a helmet on a while riding a bike, I walked up to the stores on my own, I went out on my lunch break from my sophmore year on. I lived and had fun! I agree with the changes they want to make with this horrible stretch of road but come on people. Enough with the making the kids into total wusses. Let them live and enjoy being young. Apparently some of you never did.

And you are how old now?

This is NOT about making kids into total wusses. This IS about underage illegal teenage drivers flying down a road between 85-90 mph without any regard for themselves or the innocent. This IS about a stretch of road that has been dangerous for a number of years. This IS about parents who hold their children accountable for their actions, and want nothing more than to "Let them live and enjoy being young". Unfortunately, there are too many kids driving today that believe no rules apply to them!

That's what this IS about!

[songbird]

uh, he was not an "underage illegal teenage driver".

and the problem isn't the "open campus"policy (though I am glad my daughters' high school has never had an opne campus policy -- a parent who send a child to school should expect that child to remain in school throughout the school day).

this is about a poorly engineered stretch of road that is far too dangerous.

nd it's about teenagers who think they are invincible and think nothing can ever happen to them

[Informed Poster]

songbird wrote:

uh, he was not an "underage illegal teenage driver".
and the problem isn't the "open campus"policy (though I am glad my daughters' high school has never had an opne campus policy -- a parent who send a child to school should expect that child to remain in school throughout the school day).
this is about a poorly engineered stretch of road that is far too dangerous.
nd it's about teenagers who think they are invincible and think nothing can ever happen to them

uh - I didn't say he was an "underage illegal teenage driver". Read it again. It was a generic statement.

[the obvious]

Near my home is a well traveled but never congested straight, wide road. The limit is 30mph, but its more common for cars to drive a little faster ( 40ish) since its not really residential and has few intersections.
About two years ago some drunken teenagers crashed into a tree and died, flying down that street at over 120mph.
And there was a big cry by officials to "make the road safer". They were impaired, driving over a hundred mph on a wide straight road. What could we possibly do to avoid that accident? Stack rubber tires along the sides of the roads like at a go cart track?
They wound up painting lines to make the once wide road look thinner across, supposedly that would make cars slow down.
Yeah, sure. Great job.

[Felix Leiter]

I grew up in Smithtown and that area is one dangerous area where I do not like to travel. There have been many accidents. However, the biggest danger is not speed but is the fact that there is no divider to prevent cars from crossing to the other side making a head on collision possible. There is also plenty of land on each side to construct a divider (State Park). The road can be widened by taking only a few feet of park land. The better solution here is to build a divider.

[LONG ISLANDER]

I have no pity for these idiots nor thier idiot parental units they deserve what they get the problem is innocent drivers become thier victims these are the ones to feel sorry for, I think raising the the driving age to at least 21 as with alcohol!!! there are buses these arrogant ignorant kids can use to get around it's a no brainer one
one druken accident and no licence for at least 5 years and penalise the parents too they will think twice about letting thier brats out

[Death Race]

The road doesn’t need to be fixed. People need to slow down and be careful. I say leave the road alone and come up with a plan so that the morons only kill themselves and not innocent people. How about putting a concrete divider in the middle of the road with poles along side of it so that the morons can crash into them and die?

[Peace Frog]

Another knee jerk recation waste of tax payer $$. The road has been like that forever. It's a road with a long straight away. How about blaming the kid for being a bad driver. No, blame everyone and everything but the kid. If some idiot kid hits a pole should we remove all the poles too ?

The kid was not paying attention crossed over a double double yellow line into on coming traffic and hit an inocent driver (my respects to the inocent driver & incoent kid) but everyone blames the road ? Are you kidding me ? How about blaming the kid for just being a bad driver. Way to teach responsibility to other kids.

[Bad Drivers]

The road is not poorly engineered. It is outdated for current traffic and that makes it dangerous. There are also alot of people - young drivers and adults - who feel that rules of the road don't apply to them. They are the hazard that helps to make this stretch of highway even more dangerous. Just look at all the fools who speed, tailgate, fix their makeup and flap on their cell phones while driving. I agree that the state should take enough parkland to widen the road and then install a concrete divider to prevent head on accidents and enough shoulder space for the cops to enforce the speed limit.