Wow....the 3rd time in 5 days..ANOTHER wrong way driver...on Hempstead Tpke..

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Wow....the 3rd time in 5 days..ANOTHER wrong way driver...on Hempstead Tpke..

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Cops: Wrong-way DWI on Hempstead Turnpike

Another night on Long Island, another alleged wrong-way drunken-driving incident.

For the third time in five days, the fourth in a two-week span and the sixth time in a month, a drunken driver drove the wrong way on a major Long Island road, police said. Fortunately, this time there was no crash - and no one was injured or killed.

The latest incident occurred Sunday at 4:05 a.m. on Hempstead Turnpike in East Meadow. A Highway Patrol Bureau officer spotted Bernadette Behensky, 20, of Hansen Lane, Huntington Station, driving her 2005 Volvo westbound in the eastbound lanes, police said.

Police said the woman was stopped moments after she started down the road in the wrong direction. Spotted by the officer, police said he was able to stop the car within "approximately 100 feet" after she had "exited an establishment." Police declined to identify that location.

The road is divided by a low center concrete median that is continuous, except for intersections, from Merrick Avenue near the Meadowbrook Parkway to Route 106, Newbridge Road, near the Wantagh.

During a traffic stop, the officer found
Behensky was operating the car "under the influence of an alcoholic beverage," state police said.

She was arrested and charged with aggravated driving while intoxicated, DWI, driving the wrong way on a one-way street and numerous vehicle and traffic law violations, police said. She was arraigned in First District Court in Hempstead on Sunday.

Behensky pleaded not guilty and was released on $2,500 bond or $1,500 cash bail, the Nassau County district attorney's office said. She is due to return to court Friday. Officials said her attorney information was not immediately available.

The incident is the latest in a recent rash of frightening wrong-way incursions on Long Island - the first, which occurred Nov. 15, leaving an off-duty NYPD officer dead.

In that incident state police said NYPD Officer Andre Menzies of North Babylon was headed home after work when Michael Bowen, 50, of Brooklyn, driving westbound in the eastbound lanes of the Northern State Parkway crashed into his car, head-on. Menzies was killed. Police said Bowen, who was charged with 12 counts - including aggravated vehicular homicide and vehicular manslaughter - had a blood-alcohol content of 0.26 percent - more than three times the legal limit of 0.08 in New York.

On Nov. 16 police said Katelyn O'Connell, 22, of Westbury, drove westbound on the eastbound Long Island Expressway and collided with a car in North Hills just after 5 a.m. Both drivers suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

The third incident occurred in Sayville on Sunrise Highway on Dec. 3, when the chief financial officer at Dowling College, Ralph Cerullo, 54, of East Setauket, took Suffolk County Sheriff's Office deputies on a 100-mph chase for more than four minutes before he was forced into a highway median.

The other two incidents occurred within a two-hour span last Wednesday and Thursday - the first when sheriffs said Timothy P. Griffin, 43, of Yaphank, drove westbound on the eastbound LIE and the second when police said Christopher Williams, 40, of East Northport, drove westbound on eastbound Sunrise. Law enforcement officials said both men were drunk at the time.

Sheriffs said Griffin also was driving with a suspended license, after deputies arrested him for DWI in July.

source: newsday.com

Posted 12/13/10 4:03 PM