By Jeffrey L. Reynolds, Ph.D
If merging onto the Southern State Parkway, backing out of your own driveway or going out for a morning run feels like you are taking your life into your hands on Long Island’s roads, you aren’t wrong.
There were 80,000 car crashes on Long Island in 2023, the last year for which data is available and according to the Albany-based Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research, more than 1,000 Long Islanders were killed or injured in impaired-driving crashes that year. Suffolk County topped the list statewide, accounting for 22% of the state’s impaired driving fatalities and Nassau came in second at just over 5%.
Driving is the most complex activity we do all day, and navigating Long Island’s treacherous roads requires every bit of our attention. The use of drugs or alcohol, regardless of the type of substance, causes a significant decline in visual function, mental judgment and motor skills.
In other words, impairment is impairment. But that’s not the way current state law works.
Right now, according to law enforcement professionals, an obviously impaired driver cannot be arrested and prosecuted unless law enforcement names the drug ingested as one that happens to be listed in Section 3306 of New York State’s Public Health Law.
New York is one of only four states that still maintains such a list, even though the drug scene constantly changes and people of all ages are using substances that are not on the list to get high. Those substances range from inhalants like benzene, toluene and other volatile substances that are in household cleaning products, to Xylazine (also known as “tranq”), to drugs like fentanyl — which made it to the list a few years ago but is now being altered by unscrupulous amateur chemists to skirt the law.
It’s an odd requirement, because the type of alcohol ingested by a driver does not have to be named for someone to be charged with a DWI. If impairment is evident, no test is needed to establish whether it was whiskey, wine or beer that pushed them beyond the legal limit. The same should hold true for drugs.
The loophole also means that a driver using a drug that happens to be on the Public Health Law list can avoid prosecution by simply refusing to disclose what drugs they may have taken and refusing a blood test. That’s common these days, thanks to social media videos discouraging cooperation with police during roadside stops.
That means that impaired drivers can simply drive off, putting all of us at risk as they avoid license suspensions, mandated court evaluations and potentially life-saving addiction treatment.
For some people, driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol is a one-off lapse in judgment, but, more often, it’s a pattern of behavior driven by untreated addiction.
An impaired driving arrest, while unpleasant, can be the thing that interrupts a destructive pattern of risky behaviors and paves the road to recovery before someone is seriously injured or killed. It’s harder to rebuild your life if you’ve taken someone else’s.
Laws that hold people accountable for their actions, paired with fact-based substance use prevention messages and readily accessible drug/alcohol treatment for those who need it, save lives.
As emerging street drugs become more potent and readily available, New York’s outdated approach to impaired driving handcuffs law enforcement, leaves those who might be struggling with a drug problem untreated and puts innocent people at risk.
That’s dangerous and state lawmakers should close the loophole now.
Jeffrey L. Reynolds is the president and CEO of the Long Island-based Family and Children’s Association and a member of the Coalition to Protect New Yorkers from Drugged Driving.