What Happened
A wrong-way driver triggered a fatal head-on crash on the westbound Northern State Parkway in Nassau County shortly after 5 a.m. Sunday, September 6, 2026, killing one person and leaving a second with serious injuries, according to Newsday.
New York State Police said a 2007 Ford Escape struck a 2023 Ford Maverick head-on in the westbound lanes near the Lakeville Road exit. The Ford Escape was traveling in the wrong direction. The collision was direct and frontal. Both vehicles sustained serious damage.
The driver of the 2023 Ford Maverick was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the 2007 Ford Escape was transported to a hospital with serious injuries, police said. The identity of the deceased had not been released as of the Newsday update at 12:35 p.m. Sunday.
Scene photographs taken just west of the Lakeville Road exit showed a damaged white truck — consistent with the Ford Maverick — facing in the wrong direction on the roadway, Newsday reported. Workers cleared debris from the lanes after both vehicles were removed. The westbound roadway reopened around 10:15 a.m., roughly five hours and fifteen minutes after the crash was reported.
New York State Police said the specifics of how the head-on collision occurred were not immediately available, and the investigation was continuing as of Sunday afternoon.
Location & Road Context
The crash occurred on the westbound Northern State Parkway near the Lakeville Road exit in Nassau County. The Lakeville Road interchange sits in the Great Neck area of the parkway’s western Nassau segment, a stretch that carries heavy early-morning commuter and return traffic on holiday weekends.
According to Long Island Traffic’s incident registry, this crash is the 27th recorded incident on the Northern State Parkway corridor in the past 30 days and the 85th so far in 2026. The most recent prior fatal crash on this corridor was recorded on August 11, 2026. Additional recent incidents on the corridor include a moderate crash on September 4 and a two-lane blockage in East Hills on September 3.
Broader Impact
Wrong-way crashes on divided highways are infrequent but have grown more common nationally. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found the number of fatal wrong-way crashes on divided highways nearly doubled, from 278 in 2014 to 520 in 2023 across the United States, according to Newsday. New York State Police have not yet said whether speed, impairment, or a missed entrance ramp contributed to Sunday’s crash near Lakeville Road.