An accident on July 19 in which a person on foot was injured by a passing vehicle on Three Mile Harbor-Hog Creek Road indicates that town and county officials have been slow to respond to a new reality on the roads.
In the July incident, a 55-year-old man took a misstep on the grassy, sloped road margin and stumbled into the path of a Porsche. A police report described a “shoulder” on the side of the road, but to call what lines the roads in that area and elsewhere a shoulder is a generous interpretation of what should more accurately be called embankments. There are plenty of places where the edges of the pavement are just inches from the white lines, beyond which the ground rises sharply (or drops off precipitously). Pedestrians and bicyclists are pinched between traffic and trouble. The victim in the most-recent example did not suffer apparently serious injuries. However, that was not the outcome in a similar accident in Amagansett in 2021. It is only a matter of time before it happens again.
In that tragedy, Devesh Samtani, 18, sustained head injuries while walking on the side of Old Stone Highway at night and later died. About a decade earlier, another teenager was killed on the road. After the 2021 accident, it took a resident’s persistent phone calls to the East Hampton Town Highway Department before a few signs warning drivers about pedestrians were installed.
If anything, our roads are more dangerous now than ever before. There are more cars, and an explosion in popularity of e-bikes and powered scooters demands that local officials act swiftly to reduce the danger. A place to start is by leveling steep roadsides wherever they are found, but especially on heavily used roads, including Three Mile Harbor-Hog Creek, Old Stone Highway, and on a section of Further Lane where the Town of East Hampton allowed a very wealthy property owner to raise the public road shoulder by about a foot. Southampton Town has taken a different approach, however, widening and flattening road edges as a safety measure.
“But our rural roads!” some residents will surely cry if and when East Hampton takes action. But failing to pay attention to shoulders risks more deaths, something none of us want to see happen. Officials must do more to ensure safety on the roads, for pedestrians and bicyclists as well as drivers. East Hampton has suburb-level traffic for much of the year; that is the new reality that cannot be ignored.