More than 31,000 impaired driving arrests were made across the state in 2024, highlighting the continued prevalence of drunk driving, according to the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research. The ITSMR also found that of the over 3,400 crashes involving an impaired driver in New York State, 15 percent occurred on Long Island.
In Atlantic Beach, that risk became clear last December when a driver leaving a nearby holiday party collided with a car carrying a family of three. The driver, a 30-year-old Brentwood man, had a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit of 0.08 percent and Delta-9-THC in his blood, according to Nassau County prosecutors. The crash forced an 11-year-old boy and his mother to be airlifted to Cohen Children’s Hospital. The father sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
Accident reports and impaired driving arrests often fall on the desk of John Rofrano, a police officer at Nassau County Police Department’s Fourth Precinct. He addressed concerned residents at the village meeting on March 9, saying that the fight against drunk and impaired driving is an uphill one felt countywide…