Nassau County recorded at least 78 traffic fatalities in 2025, up from 67 the year before, and local safety advocates say distracted driving is a major reason why the numbers keep climbing.
For one week last month, state police tried to do something about it. The “Put the Phone Away or Pay” campaign ran from April 6 through April 13, with troopers using both marked vehicles and Concealed Identity Traffic Enforcement cars to catch drivers on their phones. The CITE units are designed to see violations from an elevated vantage point and blend into everyday traffic flow, giving troopers a clearer look into the cabs of cars and trucks.
It worked, at least on paper. During the April 2025 version of the same campaign, state troopers issued 22,867 tickets across New York, including 4,607 specifically for distracted driving violations, according to state police. This year’s totals haven’t been released yet, but the enforcement model is the same.
One week. Then it stops.
That’s the frustration for safety researchers and community advocates who’ve watched Nassau County’s pedestrian and motorcycle fatality rate outpace the New York State average year after year. A heavy reliance on cars, roadway designs that crowd cyclists and pedestrians into dangerous margins, and a documented rise in aggressive driving all contribute to the problem. But redesigning roads takes years and enormous money. Changing driver behavior through consistent enforcement is faster and cheaper.
The data on distracted driving is brutal. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that distracted driving claimed 3,208 lives nationwide in 2024. The year before, distraction-related crashes caused 3,275 deaths and 324,819 injuries. About 600 of those killed weren’t even in vehicles: they were pedestrians, cyclists, and bystanders who never touched a phone.
Reading a text takes your eyes off the road for roughly 5 seconds. At 55 mph, that’s the length of a football field driven blind. Geotab, a vehicle management technology company, found that texting while driving produces roughly the same reaction time as a driver who has consumed four beers in an hour. Nobody would argue that drunk driving enforcement should be limited to one week in April.
As Long Island Press reported, at least 59,359 crashes were logged across Long Island in 2025, a number that’s almost certainly an undercount given the delays in data sharing between state agencies and local police departments. Nassau County’s 78 fatalities last year represent a real and measurable spike.
The fines for phone use while driving aren’t trivial. First-time offenders face $50 to $200 under state law. A second offense within 18 months brings fines up to $250. A third offense within that same window carries penalties up to $450. Probationary and junior drivers face a 120-day license suspension on the first offense alone, and a full one-year revocation if they’re caught again within six months.
Those penalties exist. Enforcement doesn’t, most of the year.
Nassau County has its own police department. So do dozens of villages. Suffolk County PD covers an enormous swath of the Island’s eastern half. None of them are formally coordinating a sustained, year-round effort aimed specifically at phone use behind the wheel. The state campaign is useful, but it covers the entire state and it ends after seven days.
Community safety groups have pushed local officials to take this more seriously for years, particularly in areas with high foot traffic near schools and commercial corridors. The Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee offers funding and resources to local agencies for targeted enforcement programs, which means the barrier here isn’t entirely financial.
What’s missing is consistency.
Seven days of enforcement creates a brief spike in awareness. Drivers slow down, put their phones down, and then the troopers pull back and old habits return within a week. Research on traffic safety enforcement consistently shows that sustained, visible policing changes behavior over time in ways that short campaigns simply don’t. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has documented this pattern repeatedly with speed enforcement and red-light cameras: presence matters, but permanence is what moves the needle.
Nassau County’s fatality numbers climbed last year even as the state ran its April crackdown. That should tell local officials something about the limits of a single-week effort applied to a year-round problem. The tools, the fines, and the enforcement authority already exist across Nassau and Suffolk counties. Getting troopers and local officers into sustained, coordinated phone enforcement isn’t a funding crisis or a staffing miracle. It’s a decision, and so far, nobody has made it.