LONG ISLAND, NY \u2014 New York State Police announced a new initiative Friday that they say aims to reduce the number of accidents and fatalities along the Southern State Parkway. <\/p>\n
Running from the Queens-Nassau border in the west to Heckscher State Park in East Islip to the east, the SSP covers about 25 miles across Long Island and has been the site of numerous accidents in recent years. In March, a six-vehicle crash left two people dead at the scene and several more injured. <\/p>\n
Just over a month after that accident, police said they would be stepping up enforcement on the state road. Warmer weather, longer stretches of daylight and a subsequent increase in traffic, police said, can bring an uptick in traffic violations and dangerous driving behavior that can lead to crashes, injuries and, in some cases, fatalities. <\/p>\n
According to police, the leading cause of those accidents and injuries are speeding, impaired driving, aggressive driving and distracted driving, \u201cwhich rest solely on the part of the driver,\u201d police said. <\/p>\n
As for what the new initiative will entail, state troopers said \u201cOperation Southern Shield\u201d was specifically designed to address those behaviors. Troopers told Patch the operation would feature increased trooper presence along the Southern State Parkway in both directions, with access to aviation equipment as needed, license plate readers, additional investigations personnel, and a continued effort to collaborate with Nassau and Suffolk County police and prosecutors. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a great working relationship with the county agencies, and our partner agencies that are local,\u201d one state trooper told Patch. \u201cThe parkways, that\u2019s our main jurisdiction down here, that\u2019s our main roadway.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cSpeeding to save only a few minutes is never worth a lifetime of consequences,\u201d Police said in an announcement of the program. \u201cSlow down. Drive sober. Pay attention. Move over. Put the phone down. Buckle up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Operation Southern Shield will run from Friday through June 12, police said, with a goal that police said is \u201csimple.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal of Operation Southern Shield is simple: reduce preventable crashes, save lives and remind operators of vehicles that every decision made behind the wheel matters,\u201d Police said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG ISLAND, NY \u2014 New York State Police announced a new initiative Friday that they say aims to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-208633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-headlines","10":"tag-new-york-news","11":"tag-new-york-state","12":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}