Long Island lawmakers vow to make roads safer after deadly series of crashes this summer
MASSAPEQUA, N.Y. -- A string of deadly crashes on Long Island has left at least 21 people dead, just in August alone.
Over the weekend, three people died in separate crashes in Farmingville, Brentwood, and Port Jefferson Station in Suffolk County.
CBS New York's Jennifer McLogan spoke with the mother from another horrible crash about what needs to be done.
"Nothing is going to bring my children or my family back," Tasheba Hamilton-Huntley said.
As Huntley plans the August 27th funerals, there was a plea two weeks after her life was ripped apart, when four members of her Uniondale family were killed by an accused drunk, drugged, speeding driver near a Massapequa Mall.
"How is he driving with fentanyl and cocaine in his system at 120 miles per hour in a shopping area?" Huntley said.
There have been more than 21 lives lost so far in August in Nassau and Suffolk County, including three more over the weekend. The crashes aren't only on wide open roads.
"My best friend grew up on this side of the street. I grew up on the other side of the street," Moshe Hill said.
Hill said as long as he can remember, pedestrians headed to temple, to the LIRR or to school have been dodging reckless, speeding cars along residential Woodfield Road in West Hempstead.
"It's always very harrowing," Hill said.
"Today begins the first day of addressing safety concerns in this corridor," Nassau County Legislator William Gaylor said.
A traffic light is going up at a place where multiple residents have been critically or fatally injured crossing the street, including 12-year-old Tomas Molina.
"Young Tomas Molina was hit on a Sunday afternoon," Nassau County Legislator John Giuffre said. "We went to this intersection in the rain to see the configuration and what happened, and it was from that moment."
That moment Nassau County pledged to slow traffic, and begin a DPW study finding ways to make roads safer.
According to the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research, 19 victims a month are killed on Long Island streets and roadways. That number jumped 24% recently, beginning in May when two young tennis players were killed by an alleged speeding wrong-way driver, and continuing all summer.
"It could have been anybody's children, anybody's family," Huntley said.
As the community helps the Huntley's GoFundMe efforts, many are begging motorists to just slow down.
All this comes as Michael DeAngelo, the man accused of speeding and driving under the influence in a crash that killed four members of a Long Island family, was due in court Monday.
A 6-year-old girl, her 60-year-old grandfather two of his young children, 10 and 13, died in the crash on Sunrise Highway on Aug. 6. Several others were hurt
Last week, DeAngelo's defense attorney said he wanted the case to be presented to a grand jury.
DeAngelo faces several charges, including aggravated vehicular manslaughter.
