Long Island’s drunk-driving winter continues

Long Island’s drunk-driving woes continued Sunday night as a Mastic man was killed and a Central Islip man was injured after an intoxicated driver mowed them down in Central Islip.

Police said the driver, Victor Ventuzelo, 32, of, Islip Terrace, was driving on Lowell Avenue with his 9-year-old son in the car when he fatally struck two pedestrians and drove away, only to return an hour later to be arrested on multiple drunk-driving charges.

It was the second accident in three days that involved Long Islanders driving drunk with their children riding shotgun. John Nullmeyer, 43, was driving the wrong way down Nassau Road in Huntington on Friday evening with his 14-year-old stepson when he struck a car, continued driving, then hit a second car on Main Street and fled the scene, according to police.

Long Island has been plagued by a string of high-profile alcohol-fueled accidents since veteran police officer Andre Menzies was killed by a wrong-way drunk driver on the Northern State Parkway last November.

When asked whether drunk-driving incidents were on the rise, one law enforcement source who spoke to Metro on the condition of anonymity revealed, “People get arrested for drunk driving every day in Long Island. We don’t alert the public about every single one.”