New text stop areas where drivers can pull over to use their cellphones on Flanders Road were dedicated in Barbara Tocci’s memory Friday.
Tag: Barbara Tocci
The rest areas on Flanders Road will be named in Barbara Tocci’s memory and turned into “text stops” where drivers can pull over to use their cellphones, under a proposal before county and state officials.
The beloved 47-year-old grandmother was killed Jan. 16, 2014, when a utility truck driven by a man authorities said was texting while driving crossed into her lane near Spinney Road in Flanders and struck her vehicle.
A Bayport man involved in a head-on car crash that killed a Flanders woman in January 2014 will have all charges related to the crash dropped after completing 140 hours of community service, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office. READ
A felony charge of criminally negligent homicide was dismissed against a Bayport man who was involved in a fatal crash on Flanders Road last January, despite prosecutors’ assertions that the man was texting and driving shortly before his truck crashed into a car driven by a Hampton Bays woman. READ
The two-car crash on Route 24. (Credit: Carrie Miller, file).
The 54-year-old PSEG driver arrested Saturday on a criminally negligent homicide charge in relation to the Flanders Road crash that killed a Hampton Bays woman last year was texting his girlfriend at the time, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office.
Michael Pepe, 54, of Bayport, was having “an extended text message conversation with his girlfriend” in the time leading up to the Jan. 16, 2014 crash that killed Barbara Tocci, 47, Assistant District Attorney Shaun McCready said at Mr. Pepe’s arraignment Tuesday at First District Court in Central Islip.
Ms. Tocci was driving a 2000 Ford Explorer north on Flanders Road near Spinney Road when she was struck by Mr. Pepe’s southbound Public Service Enterprise Group utility truck, Southampton Town police had said after the crash.
Marco Borghese during a tour of his Cutchogue vineyard in 2012. (Credit: Samantha Brix, file)
Several people were killed while traveling on area roadways this year, prompting officials to repair potholes and a family to install a billboard on Flanders Road urging drivers to be alert. (more…)
Members of the Tocci family in front of the sign Friday afternoon. (Credit: Carrie Miller)
Two weeks after posting a large sign on Flanders Road urging drivers to avoid texting and driving, a Flanders woman said she is feeling pressure to take it down. (more…)
A sign on Route 24 warns drivers of the dangers of texting and driving following the death of Barbara Tocci on the road earlier this year. (Credit: Carrie Miller)
It might be a common refrain, and it might make common sense. But one Flanders family — quite understandably — wants you to know not to text and drive, and not to drive under the influence of drugs and alcohol.