The latest fatal crash on the Southern State Parkway, which left two dead and several others injured on Sunday, March 15, has exemplified one of the region’s most dangerous roads and has one Nassau County legislator calling for change.
Diana Kutateladze, 36, of Oceanside, was arrested and charged with aggravated vehicular homicide, two counts of vehicular manslaughter, assault, driving while intoxicated and reckless driving, police said, after a multi-car pile-up near Exit 17S in Malverne on the parkway.
Police said Kutateladze, who had been driving a 2020 black Cadillac Escalade with one other person in the car, sideswiped a gray BMW traveling in the left lane, and then lost control of the car, crossed the center median and continued traveling westbound in the eastbound lanes, hitting multiple cars, including a head-on collision with a 2016 black Toyota Highlander, police said.
A total of six vehicles and 10 people were involved in the collision, police said. Two passengers in the 2016 black Toyota Highlander, 82-year-old Donald Maxwell and 88-year-old Liscent B. Maxwell, were pronounced dead at the scene, and several others were injured and taken to hospitals, police said.
Preliminary investigations indicated speed and impairment were contributing factors to this incident, police said.
Nassau County Legislator Carrié Solages (D–Valley Stream) called the deaths “preventable” in a statement on Wednesday, March 18.
“These are the latest fatalities in ‘Blood Alley’ – a notorious 10-mile stretch of the Southern State where thousands of crashes occur each year and countless lives have been lost,” she said.
The 25.5-mile state-operated parkway saw 137 people killed and 846 seriously injured in more than 42,700 collisions between 2012 and 2023, according to an analysis done by Newsday in 2025.
Adjusted for traffic, the Southern State had about twice as many crashes as the Northern State Parkway or Long Island Expressway in 2023, according to the report.
Solages said the highway is poorly lit, winding and narrow, which, when combined with Kutateladze’s actions on Sunday, led to the death of a Westbury couple.
“As our community grapples with this senseless loss of life, I respectfully urge the New York State Police and the Nassau County Police Department to increase patrols on the Southern State and its connected roadways,” she said. “This will send a clear message that aggressive, reckless, and impaired driving, especially, will never be tolerated.”
State Assembly Member Michaelle Solages (D-Elmont), who is the sister of Carrie Solages, introduced a bill that proposes to designate the Southern State Parkway as a highway safety corridor, which would allow for increased fines, increased patrolling, signage and speed cameras along the highway, measures that are typically only allowed in work zones on Long Island.
The bill was first proposed in January 2025 and is still with the state Assembly Transportation Committee.
Carrié Solages said she will continue to work with state officials to look for long-term solutions to the safety of the Southern State.
