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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

A three-year-old golden retriever, missing for two weeks, was pulled out of Barnegat Bay Wednesday by two blessed souls. I know how that golden feels. I was pulled out of Port Jefferson Harbor Sunday and was I ever grateful.

I’ll tell you the whole story.

My family is visiting, finally, as the pandemic fades. That includes three sons, three daughters-in-law, one granddaughter, two grandsons, (the third was working), one dog and two cats. Sunday late afternoon we noted the arrival of what sailors call “the cocktail breeze,” and to enjoy it, three of us went out in the harbor on a 16-foot Hobie Cat. The catamaran is little more than two pontoons connected by a sturdy webbing on which passengers sit. There is a mainsail and a jib, and the light craft really flies across the water. But there is no motor, only an oar in case the wind dies down, and we have to row ourselves back to shore-hardly a desirable state of affairs, as you can imagine.

So, there we were, happily zipping along, when the breeze turned into a sudden gust, caught us off guard, and lifted one pontoon out of the water. I was sitting above the other, and I saw the colorful mainsail rising up like a wall and coming toward me. The abrupt knot in the pit of my stomach confirmed that we were about to capsize. That had never before happened with this boat. I braced for a shock.

To my pleasant surprise, the water temperature, while not warm, was more comfortable than I expected for so early in the season. And while I was wearing a life vest, I had casually closed only the top couple of toggles, so the vest rode up to the level of my chin, pinning the edge of my broad-brimmed hat that had come askew in front of my eyes. While I knew I was in the water, I couldn’t see a thing.

It took us several minutes to sort ourselves out, my son, daughter-law and myself. We worked to untangle ourselves as we clung to the side of one of the overturned pontoons. Then the boat became caught in a mooring into which the wind had blown us. We hoped one of the two motor boats that came along would stop to help. They passed us by, but one slowed down to take a video of us struggling in the water.

It is hard to right a catamaran, and in the sudden heavy wind, it proved impossible.

“Maybe we should call for help,” my daughter-in-law suggested, and proceeded to do just that.

Fortunately Evelyn and Greg Haegele, in their sailboat aptly named “Necessity” heard us and slowly approached. My children were most concerned with getting me to safety and up the swim ladder that Greg had thrown over the side, my daughter-law helping me swim over to their boat. My son calling out my age with concern in his voice.

It was not easy to climb the six steps in my sopping wet clothes, but as they say at NASA, failure was not an option.

Then Greg passed his sunglasses to his wife and made a beautiful dive to swim over and help right the Hobie. Together they were successful despite the strong wind.

As my children clambered back aboard and sailed off, a police boat, followed by a fire boat dashed after them, checking to see if all was well. It seems some alert person in a waterfront home in Belle Terre, witnessed the mishap and called 911.

Meanwhile the Haegeles took me back to Port Jefferson via the launch service and then drove me home, a drenched dog.

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On June 12, Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming led a memorial event for public transit workers who lost their lives to COVID-19. Photo by Rita J. Egan

This past Saturday at a memorial honoring the Suffolk and Nassau transportation workers who lost their lives to COVID-19, speakers touched on the idea that our definition of what makes a worker essential has evolved over the past 15 months.

We have always recognized the heroic acts of people such as firefighters and police officers who save and protect us when we are in danger. We respect the work that health professionals and EMT workers and volunteers provide when we or loved ones are sick or injured. However, the pandemic brought to the forefront many we have overlooked previously in our everyday lives.

To think, for more than a year, truckers and grocery store employees have gone out every workday, taking the chance that they may be exposed to a virus that could hospitalize or even kill them or their loved ones, just to make sure we had food on our tables.

Then there were the home health care professionals, who continued to care for their patients inside their homes, despite the risks, and our utility workers who kept the lights on and the water flowing.

Journalists continued to be there to keep everybody abreast of what was going on in the world, whether about the virus, restrictions, politics and so much more, some even standing in the middle of protests.

And of course, the public transportation workers were there to make sure that those professionals and so many others who were unable to work from home were able to get to their offices and stores every day. When one doesn’t have a car, a train or bus can make the difference between getting a paycheck or not.

How many people in their everyday lives can remember on occasion rushing around and maybe not showing such workers the respect they deserve. Maybe it was being short tempered with a cashier because the line was long or an item was missing a price tag or driving too fast as workers were repairing a road thereby putting them in danger.

Adversity can bring with it many lessons, appreciating those who make our day a bit easier is one we hope all will remember as our country continues on the road to normalcy. It’s essential for everyone to have some sort of income to afford the necessities of life, but there are some whose work is essential in keeping us alive and healthy beyond the roles we once recognized.

We salute them all.

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Trustee Kathianne Snaden with her three daughters at the Unity Party victory party June 15. Photo by Julianne Mosher

Over the last few weeks of covering the Port Jefferson Village election, we’ve been fortunate enough to see things in person again. 

Restrictions have been lifted and people are vaccinated — the world is slowly getting back to normal. 

Last week, we attended the candidates’ debate at the Village Center. While sitting in the front row of the packed-out venue, we looked around at the people in the crowd. 

Sitting a few seats away were trustee Kathianne Snaden’s children — three girls, ages 11, 12 and 18.

As their mother debated, answering tough and controversial questions village residents asked, they looked at her with awe. That was their mom up there, taking the initiative to try and make a difference in their community. 

It was inspiring. Sure, we see strong women everywhere nowadays. There are doctors, lawyers, politicians, business owners, inventors — women do great things. But what we don’t always see is the impact this is leaving on our children. Young girls looking up to superstars who have multiple jobs — that include packing their lunches, driving them to school and doing their laundry. 

And it isn’t just that trustee. Candidate Suzanne Velazquez has a daughter who’s graduating high school. That’s another young person with an idol right in her own home. 

A few days later, the Unity Party held an election-result event at Saghar restaurant. Music was playing, food was being served and people danced together to celebrate another two years of the current administration. 

Mayor Margot Garant’s mother, Jeanne Garant, was there. She, too, was mayor of our village years ago, and during her acceptance speech, Margot thanked — and jokingly blamed  — her mom for her inspiration to become mayor. Now seven terms later, that family name is a staple in the village, and it all started with Jeanne putting her name on the ballot. 

What if Jeanne hadn’t run for mayor all those moons ago? Would Margot have decided to run? Maybe having that strong matriarch setting an example to her as a kid is what planted the seed in having her eventually try it out. 

Maybe Velazquez’s daughter will run one day. Maybe Snaden’s will, too.

But the fact that four out of five candidates this year were all women is spectacular and should be applauded. 

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Photo from Pixabay

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Aliens are all the rage these days.

People are excited about the declassified documents that seem to suggest a technology that exceeds American understanding and know-how.

Of course, one possible explanation is that other people built them. With billions of intelligent humans scattered around the planet, it’s possible that we have fallen a few steps behind the most advanced surveillance technology of the world, making these sudden flying objects that disappear an enormous mystery, even as our fellow humans elsewhere are snickering.

While that only feeds into the advanced state of American paranoia, it doesn’t preclude the possibility that these technological mysteries are human-generated. Then again, maybe someone has built a time machine and is tooling around in a craft from future humans. If that’s the case, why didn’t our descendants do more to fix historical tragedies, global warming or other human errors?

Another tantalizing option exists: what if they are, indeed, alien? What if advanced creatures from another planet, galaxy, solar system, or celestial neighborhood, have come into our airspace to spy on us, learn our secrets and decide whether to stick their appendages out at us so we can meet them and become acquaintances or allies?

I was thinking about what I might say to an alien scout gathering information to decide whether to bring all manner of other creatures to our planet to share a drink, catch a baseball game, and argue the merits of communism versus capitalism.

I imagine a conversation might go something like this:

Alien: So, tell me about yourself?

Me: Well, uh, I’m human.

Alien: What does that mean?

Me: I guess it means I can talk to you and that, unlike other animals on this planet, I have imagined what this conversation might be like for much of my life.

Alien: How do you know other creatures didn’t imagine it?

Me: Maybe they did, but they seem kind of busy trying to avoid getting eaten.

Alien: That doesn’t mean they couldn’t imagine it.

Me: I suppose. So, where are you from?

Alien: Somewhere else.

Me: Wow, helpful. Can you tell me about yourself?

Alien: Yes, but I made a long trip and I’d like to hear about you, first. Do you mind?

Me: Now that you put it that way, I wouldn’t want to be considered intergalactically rude. So, what else can I tell you?

Alien: What’s the best and worst part of humanity?

Me: It’s hard to come up with one of each. Our ability to help each other is near the top of the list. Oh, as is our ability to imagine something, like traveling to the moon or Mars, and then making it happen. Music and art are also pretty amazing.

Alien: What about the worst?

Me: Destruction? Hatred? Violence? Excluding people? Preying on people’s weaknesses? Using our trauma to traumatize other people?

Alien: You sound complicated. Can we trust you?

Me: We don’t trust each other, so, going by that, I’d say, caveat emptor.

Alien: What does that mean?

Me: It means, “let the buyer beware.”

Alien: Hmm. So, who is this near your leg?

Me: That’s the family dog.

Alien barks at the dog. The dog barks back. The alien nods.

Alien: We’ve decided to go in a different direction.

Me: Wait, where are you taking my dog?

Alien: He’s not yours, and he’s chosen to join us.

Me: Can I come?

Alien laughs and flies off, buzzing close by a jet, the sound of the family pet laugh-barking in the skies.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Most of my free time this past weekend I spent reading a little book, something of a page-turner, called “Long Island’s Gold Coast Elite and the Great War.” Doesn’t sound like a riveting read unless you like history and want to know more about what happened on the north shore of the Island from Sands Point to Port Jefferson, and its effect on the rest of the country during World War I.

Life here and in the northeast establishment was different then, epitomized by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gold Coast. It was a time of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, a time of JP Morgan and William Vanderbilt, a time of high society that came from prep schools and Ivy League colleges, white-shoe law firms and Wall Street financiers. It was guardedly Anglo-Saxon and Protestant, in which members married each other and lived in over 1000 high-end, architecturally distinguished country homes that boasted large swaths of land and gardens. It featured a privileged existence that ended with the Great Depression, followed by the Second World War.

This highly influential concentration of those with money and power, though not so numerous in population, played an outsized role in nudging the country into WWI, and Richard F. Welch, the author of the well-researched book, tells us how. Why did the prominent residents want the nation to enter the war, and not just enter but to do so decidedly on the side of the Allies?

Welch offers the following reasons.

The first was money. Almost immediately after the outbreak of war, in 1914, JP Morgan & Sons was designated by Britain as the United Kingdom’s official agent for procurement in the United States. That meant exporting food, drugs and especially munitions to the U.K. The fact that Britain controlled the sea lanes provided practical encouragement. It got to the point where the bank’s activities interfered with the nation’s official policy of neutrality. 

The Morgan bank also spearheaded funding for the Allied war effort that enabled purchases from the United States, despite the fact that the Wilson administration opposed loans for any of the belligerents. The bank evaded these sentiments by labeling loans as “bank credits.” And of course, the Morgan bank received commissions for these services that ultimately netted them $30 million. Wilson was stymied in his attempt at proposing a peace agreement that he calculated would bring the financially strapped Allies to the negotiating table. Only Germany’s unwitting launch of unrestricted submarine warfare on all supply ships, (some carrying passengers), which enflamed America, caused a reversal of the administration’s loans opposition.

Further, “there was an instinctive sense of class and ethnic solidarity—both inbred and learned—which affected virtually all the major players in the New York financial and business world and underlay the calculations in most government decisions,” writes Welch. Many of the men were descended from British stock, perhaps had British spouses and basically absorbed from the same syllabuses an “Eurocentric and assumed imperialism by the white western powers, domestically and internationally, as both normal and positive,” according to Welch. They socialized with each other, lived near each other, worked with each other and saw themselves as the country’s elite, strategically located at the heart of the nation’s economy. 

And they saw America’s future, aligned with that of the U.K., as a burgeoning world power. This was certainly being proselytized by Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge and those around them, “who envisioned America as the new global power—playing Rome to Britain’s Greece.” 

And that was well before the phrase “special relationship” was hatched, “the belief that shared language, basic political principles and common international objectives bind the United States and Britain together.”

It’s a fascinating scenario that Welch puts forth, and not being a credentialed historian, I cannot comment on its validity. But I can attest to the social and cultural tone of Manhattan in the 1940s through ‘60s as being faithfully portrayed. It was indeed a different world, of which even as a child, I was aware.

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Parents gathered at an ‘Unmask Our Kids’ rally last week in Hauppauge. Photo by Kim Brown

The last week has been really confusing surrounding children wearing masks in schools and during recess.

With under three weeks left of classes, parents across Long Island have been rallying outside the county offices, demanding that Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) ends the mask mandates for little ones. 

But it became political, fast. 

We agree: Masks are annoying, and we can only imagine how it’s impacting children in schools emotionally and physically. The weather has been hot — field days and outdoor sports have been starting back up in high and humid temperatures. But public health is still a top priority. It should not be political. 

And while U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY1) and Andrew Giuliani (R) held the same exact rally, in the same exact spot just a week apart, something must have worked because Cuomo announced a change in the state mandate two days after Zeldin’s gathering. 

But then that changed because the state Department of Health said it isn’t time for kids to be maskless inside yet — outside they can.

Parents were confused, upset — and rightfully so. Districts had to send out letters every other day updating what was allowed and what was not allowed. 

We’re all very tired. We want this to end. What we don’t want, though, is for things to happen prematurely. Is it better for the kids to spend the next few days with a mask on and then its summer break? Remember only people over 12 can be vaccinated, leaving many students in schools unvaccinated either because of age or their family’s choice.

In this case we think patience is a virtue. It’s not completely over yet. Be safe and be smart.

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Adrian Popp

Adrian Popp, chair of Infection Control at Huntington Hospital/Northwell Health and associate professor of medicine at Hofstra School of Medicine, spoke with TBR Newspapers to discuss the current state of vaccinations in Suffolk County, the return to school in the fall, workplace issues, and tic-borne challenges for residents. Please find below an abridged version of the interview below. If you’d like to listen to the entire interview, view the video above.

COVID-19

TBR: How close are we to the 70% threshold for herd immunity to COVID-19?

Popp: We were hoping vaccination would start rolling out pretty fast and actually that happened. Over the last several months, more and more people got vaccinated. Right now, it’s open more or less like just show up and you can get a vaccine. You don’t even need an appointment anymore. The number of people vaccinated in Suffolk County is, percentage-wise, around 55% of eligible persons.

TBR: What about the rates at which people are seeking the vaccines? Has that slowed?

Popp: The number getting vaccinated has somewhat plateaued. The most eager people who wanted to get vaccinated did. Now, we’re seeing people who are actually still willing to get vaccinated and doing it and also some of people who are on the fence getting more information and speaking with other people who actually received the vaccine. More and more people are getting confident that the vaccine is safe, efficacious, and I hope this trend will continue.

TBR: What about schools in the fall? Will students return without masks and at full capacity?

Popp: At this point, the rate of coronavirus in Suffolk County is very low and has been decreasing since March steadily and is at almost a minimum even compared to last year. The question is, what will happen down the road? What will happen in the fall? We know that coronavirus has a propensity to be more active in cold environment. It’s hard to predict, because of these variants coming from different parts of the world. We should be hopeful that the fall will look good as long as more and more people get vaccinated. Hopefully, by September, we’ll reach about 70%, then going back to school will be easier.

TBR: As offices reopen and people return to work, how should companies handle rules, especially if some people aren’t vaccinated?

Popp: Offices vary in size, the number of people, how many are sitting in one room, close to one another. One has to make a decision on a case-by-case basis. Ideally, everyone working in one office should be vaccinated. It’s a difficult situation, mandating people to get vaccinated. It’s a fine line between your personal liberties and public policies.

TBR: When might a booster be necessary?

Popp: The need for the booster is being debated [as] the efficacy of the vaccine, the immunogenicity of the vaccine is probably higher than what I expected to see. From the early stages of December, we do find that they hold their antibodies quite well. The expectation is that this could last maybe two years or so. We don’t know that yet. One has to give it time and really find out.

TBR: What about weddings?

Popp: The wedding situation is quite a big situation. A lot of people have postponed the wedding in the hopes of having a real thing later on. The approach people have taken varied from A to Z. There is no cookie-cutter way to say this is the right thing to do and that’s the wrong thing to do. A friend of mine getting married is asking every person to be vaccinated. If you’re not vaccinated, you’re not allowed in the wedding. This is the decision of the groom and bride. Other venues are obviously more open, and they invite everybody and so forth. In the end, you have to be comfortable with the decision you make and you’re going there to have fun, you can’t have fun and celebrate if you’re truly nervous.

Tick-borne diseases

TBR: What about tick-borne diseases? Is there messaging people should keep in mind?

Popp: In the last three years, I have seen more tick-related diseases than before. We’re not talking only Lyme disease, could be also babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, and Rocky Mountain Spotted fever. Rocky Mountain Spotted fever used to be very unusual on Long Island. Now, we do see cases. I have already seen cases this year. When you go somewhere walking or hiking in some woods or meadows that may have ticks that may be around there, what you do at the end of the day when you come home, you get your shower, do a body check. Have someone else look at areas you can’t see well on your back, back of your legs.

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

You don’t have to look hard to see them alongside the road. They aren’t even always on the sharpest curves or the steepest hills.

There, along the median or over there, by the right side of the road, are the homemade crucifixes, the flowers, the stuffed animals and the personal effects of people who never made it wherever they were going, their lives ending on or near asphalt as other vehicles collided with theirs.

My family recently took a road trip, where we easily could have become another statistic, and our family or friends could have just as easily been visiting the spot where it ended for one, two, three or all four of us.

I was driving during a recent weekend, excited by the open road and eager to remove the family from the neighborhood patterns that have defined our lives for well over a year.

My wife navigated, checked her email, exchanged texts with friends, and regularly asked if I wanted her to drive, if I needed a drink, or if I was hungry.

Our son was napping behind me, his head tilted back and to the left. Our daughter was immersed in virtual interactions with her friends, head down, a Mona Lisa smile plastered on her face.

With my peripheral vision, I traced the flow of the taller and shorter trees that passed by, the familiarity of the Texas, Indiana, Ohio and California license plates on nearby cars and trucks, and the click, click, click of the road that churned beneath our wheels.

Up ahead, the driver of one of the thousands of SUVs that dot the American landscape hit his brakes. My wife instantly saw it and closed her eyes. Unlike me, she typically hits her brakes as soon as she sees the red lights at the back of the car in front of her.

I immediately take my foot off the accelerator, where it hovers over the brake. As we rapidly approached the car in front of us, I applied the brake with some force, coming to an almost complete stop just feet before reaching the bumper.

I exhaled in relief, while immediately hitting the hazards. I wanted the cars behind me to know I wasn’t merely touching my brakes, but that I, and all the other cars around me, were stopping.

For a moment, I chatted with my wife. I have no idea what she or I was saying, when I noticed a truck coming towards at an incredible rate of speed.

“Hold on! This isn’t good!” I shouted, waking my son and drawing my daughter away from her phone.

I reflexively tapped my accelerator and drove my car directly towards the nearly stopped SUV on my right side. The truck, meanwhile, dove into the thin shoulder.

As it flew by, the truck somehow missed us completely. The car next to me honked in frustration, as the driver, who must have moved to her right, glared. I wanted to tell her that a truck might have crushed our family if the driver and I hadn’t each made last second adjustments.

Her lane kept moving, and she likely didn’t give my sudden maneuver another thought. With my hands in a vice grip on the wheel and my breathing rapid, I stared at the truck in front of me. I wasn’t sure whether I would have liked to punch or hug the driver, who didn’t notice me slowing down, see my hazard lights or leave himself enough room to stop. At the same time, though, he — and it could have been a woman, because I never saw the driver — turned onto the small shoulder, finding just enough space to squeeze past me without destroying my car, my family or my life.

For the next several minutes, I struggled to drive, as the image of the speeding truck with nowhere to go in my rear view mirror replayed itself in my head.

“Are you okay? Do you need me to drive?” my wife asked anxiously.

My family and I were okay. We weren’t a part of a sad story that ended on an American highway. Skid marks left on the road weren’t a marker for the final seconds of our lives.

We are grateful for the combination of factors that turned a close call into a near miss. Perhaps this happened for a reason beyond giving us more opportunities to extend the journeys of our lives. Perhaps one of the purposes is to provide a warning to everyone else to remain vigilant, to brake early and to stay sharp and focused on the roads.

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Here we go again. I have had another encounter with a tick, but this time, to make the story more interesting, the villain is a white tick. At least it can appear white when it is engorged with blood. My blood. Just the thought of it is enough to make one’s skin crawl, right? 

Well, it’s tick season particularly now, and you don’t have to go into the woods to find them. They can be in the beautiful lawn at your house or in the bushes that you brush against when you take out the garbage. Unless you are wearing long pants that are tucked into your socks and a long sleeve shirt and hat, you could be a victim. More likely, your dog could appear to a tick as a delicious steak on four legs, and if bitten, the dog can inadvertently carry the tick into your home. I think the white tick found me as I was sitting on the cement edge of a pool and wearing just shorts and a short sleeve shirt in the recent 90-degree weather. (Chicken that I am, I found the water still too cold to jump in.)

We all know that ticks can carry Lyme disease. But there are other diseases that could potentially be transmitted through their bite. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is another, and despite its geographical designation, this malady can occur throughout the United States and yes, even on Long Island. A local  internist I know tells me he has seen several cases in the course of his practice. 

RSMF, as it is sometimes referred to, is a bacterial disease that typically begins with a fever and fierce headache. A few days later a rash develops, made up of small spots usually starting on the wrists and ankles. Other symptoms may include muscle pains and vomiting.

To my surprise, when I had routine blood work done for an annual check-up a couple of years ago, I discovered that I had indeed had RSMF from that previous tick bite but with no symptoms.

Asymptomatic versions do indeed occur, and I was one such example. Now I have again been bitten, and the question is whether I could get the disease again, if the tick carried RSMF, or if I have antibodies sufficient enough to make me immune. Then again, I cannot be sure that this recent tick did not carry Lyme disease or some other microbial agent of infection.

What to do?

It never helps to have a medical problem on a weekend. I apparently was bitten on Saturday afternoon and found the tick behind my right knee on awakening Sunday morning. My hand was drawn to it because of a severe itch. At first, because it was small and white, we thought it was a skin tab that had spontaneously appeared. But upon pulling, it came off and began crawling away. Since I had experience with a tick bite before, I knew to capture the tick in a plastic sandwich baggie and save for the physician to send for testing.

As the day progressed, I could feel a tiny lump where I had been bitten, and the area around the lump became red and warm, with the same intense itch that had originally drawn my attention. By Tuesday, I had an appointment with my physician, and I had more than only the tick to show him. The red area had increased from the size of a silver dollar to that of my palm. I am now taking doxycycline, the antibiotic of choice, as well as an antihistamine for what is probably an allergic reaction.

I share this with you as a cautionary tale to urge you to check yourselves daily for ticks that might have targeted you as a good meal. And further, don’t just assume a tick on you will be black and therefore readily spotted. Take heed from my experience. They can also be white.

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METRO photo

With the Memorial Day weekend behind us, it’s time to enjoy outdoor get-togethers such as barbecues and lazy days on the beach. Unfortunately, this time of year also means more drivers under the influence on our roads and more inexperienced ones, too. 

When attending a party, it’s pretty simple. If you plan on drinking alcohol or ingesting other substances that can impair your senses, make sure you have a plan. There is no excuse for driving under the influence. Once upon a time, someone who planned on drinking needed to have a designated driver, plan to sleep over at the place where they were partying or call a taxi. Sometimes many partiers found themselves with a designated person who decided they would have a little fun, too. Or, with no room to sleep at the house where the party was held or a taxi that never showed up, they then got behind the wheel of a car and took off. Nowadays, with phone apps to order car services such as Uber or Lyft, there’s no excuse for driving under the influence of any substance.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2019, 10,142 people lost their lives due to drunk-driving crashes in the U.S. That’s 10,142 lives that were lost unnecessarily. But there is even more to watch out for on the road during those hot months besides drunk drivers. 

Memorial Day to Labor Day has become known as the “100 deadliest days” of the year as the teen driver death rate increases. According to AAA, from the unofficial start of summer to its unofficial end, there are “more fatal crashes per day, on average, involving teen drivers compared to the rest of the year.”

A study by AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found more than 7,000 teens died in such crashes from 2010-19 in the U.S. In New York state, during the same period, 473 teen drivers died in car crashes. Risk factors include teens lack of driving skills and experiences behind the wheel and the unstructured time that summer brings with kids out of school and not having as many activities such as sports and clubs. There are also other risk factors such as texting while driving, running red lights, driving aggressively and not wearing a seat belt.

What can one do when they’re traveling the roads besides watching out for drivers who are weaving in or out or running red lights? The best thing is to set an example of good driving habits on the road, especially when young people are in the passenger seats, which means cinching that seat belt, no texting or talking on the phone, no eating or drinking while steering.

And to play a part in keeping impaired drivers off the road, of course, when you’re hosting a party, make arrangements for your guests who will be indulging themselves.

The summertime should be time for fun, not for tears. Let’s keep the roads in our community safe, not only for the next few months but all year long. It just takes making a few wise decisions.

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