By:Carrie James
Task force studies Salisbury Park Drive; finds alarming rate of accidents, deaths
With summer fast approaching, members of the East Meadow Civic Association's Traffic Safety Task Force are moving full force to get the Town of Hempstead and Nassau County to deal with a long list of traffic concerns, especially along Salisbury Park Drive.
"We have a particular problem with Salisbury Park Drive," said Richard Baggs, vice president of the task force that formed last September after a local resident died because of a car accident there. "During the summer, the problem tends to get worse."
Since last fall, the Traffic Safety Task Force has investigated Salisbury Park Drive, as well as other roads throughout the East Meadow School District. Now, they are taking this information to a variety of government agencies, including the Nassau County Police and Public Works departments. And, they say, they won't stop pressing their case until things improve.
After the accident last fall, East Meadow Civic Association President Robert Zafonte, along with Baggs and other residents, formed the task force to prevent any more deaths along the road. So far, seven have occurred in the last 11 years along the roughly three-mile-long roadway, which passes by Eisenhower County Park.
"We don't want to see another accident there, and we definitely don't want to see another fatality," Zafonte said.
Another major problem associated with the accidents has been property damage, said task force member Ed Gold, who has lost five cars in front of his Salisbury Park Drive home to reckless drivers.
"That road is so bad for speeding," Gold said. "We want a double yellow line along that portion of the road with signs that say don't pass. This area is delightful with the exception of the problem with traffic."
Gold also saw his neighbor get hit by a car a few years ago as he was walking his dog across the street. He said he sees the problems of Salisbury Park Drive every day and, like other task force members, will work hard to bring change.
Initially, the Traffic Safety Task Force wrote letters to various people trying to raise awareness of the traffic and accident problem along Salisbury Park Drive. Their actions soon took a different turn, however, when the task force realized it needed to present facts to prove their case.
"In order to prove our case, we have to have statistical data," Zafonte said. "So, we went to the police department ourselves and got all the accident records for the past 10 years. We spent hours trying to figure out how to improve the situation."
Starting in October 2000, the task force began an investigation of all accidents that occurred along Salisbury Park Drive, tentatively 523 since 1990. In these accidents, roughly 350 injuries were reported. There were also seven deaths, two of which the task force uncovered based on knowledge that two of the accident records indicated a person was injured, but had not been updated when the person later died of those injuries.
Baggs also took time to investigate each intersection, road by road, to see what the road conditions were like. He looked for things such as visibility issues, types of signage and what kinds of traffic control devices existed.
Through all their research, task force members discovered that six of the seven deaths along Salisbury Park Drive occurred in a 51-month period in roughly a one-mile stretch.
The road-by-road survey also found that many intersections had poor visibility and others didn't have any kind of signs or traffic-control devices.
Problems such as these needed immediate action in the eyes of the task force, Zafonte said. So, they compiled a preliminary report that detailed the investigation results, as well as 12 recommendations to improve the situation.
Last month, they presented their preliminary report to several town and county officials, including Councilman Gary Hudes (R-Levittown), who recently joined the task force to help move things along on the legislative side.
Already, the task force has seen some action from the county. Nassau County police patrol the road more and have placed a speed-detection machine on the drive several times as well. Also, Ray Ribeiro, assistant director of traffic engineering for the county's Public Works Department, has approved installation of 12-inch lenses on the traffic lights at Carman Avenue and Salisbury Park Drive, the site of two fatal accidents over two years.
The task force also recommended the road receive numerous other changes. Among the recommendations, task force members requested that each cross road should have a stop sign, along with a sign that states "Cross Traffic Does Not Stop."
They also asked the county to:
