Editorial standards

Editorial Policy & Corrections

Long Island Traffic publishes accident, crime, and road-condition coverage for Nassau and Suffolk Counties. We're a continuously-updated publication: when new information emerges from official sources after a story is first published, we update the article in place rather than burying the follow-up in a separate post. This page documents how that works and how to request a correction.

Last reviewed: 2026-09-26

Source standards

News reports require primary evidence, clear attribution and substantive local facts. A single agency record can support a source-based report; we label that format and do not claim independent reporting. Original analysis and firsthand reporting require their own supporting evidence. Routine traffic alerts use short agency notices with an expiry time. Historical coverage is being reviewed against these standards. Our source feeds include:

  • NYS Police Troop L — daily PDF blotters covering Long Island state-jurisdiction roadways.
  • Nassau County Police Department (NCPD) — official press releases via the CivicPlus News Flash system.
  • Suffolk County Police Department (SCPD) — official press releases on the SCPD press-room (suffolkpd.org).
  • NYSDOT 511NY — real-time traffic incident, closure, and construction data via the public 511NY API.
  • National Weather Service (NWS) — active alerts for the New York metro forecast zones (NYZ072/078/079/176).
  • Other news outlets — reports from Newsday, News 12 Long Island, Patch and others are used as leads. A single outlet's report is not enough for a standalone article: we require a primary record, two independent sources, or our own data. Copies of the same wire or police release count as one source. News aggregators are never cited as a source.

New incidents first appear on the live map, incident registry and road pages. A standalone article is written only after the evidence has had time to mature (90 minutes for routine incidents, two hours for fatal or serious-injury crashes) and only when we can add something useful, such as verified road impact, an official timeline or registry context.

We do not publish from anonymous social-media reports without independent confirmation. When a story originates with a non-official source, we say so in the source attribution alongside the relevant claims.

Automation and responsibility

We use software to collect agency feeds and AI-assisted tools to draft, check and update reports. Automated checks can make mistakes; Long Island Traffic remains responsible for what it publishes. We do not describe automated drafting as an interview, a site visit or firsthand reporting.

Our statistical reports identify their datasets, time periods and limits. Counts of published stories are not counts of unique crashes. Fatal-crash totals without traffic exposure do not establish a road's risk or a town's overall safety.

Victim privacy

For new reports and updates, we publish a victim's name only when source evidence explicitly confirms that they are 19 or older. We withhold names when age is unknown or the source uses child or minor wording. A name appearing in another publication does not override this rule.

This protection covers headlines, article text, summaries, images, captions, links and feeds. We also remove details that could indirectly identify a protected person. Automated checks route each new report and update; a failed check holds publication. We are reviewing older coverage against this standard. Please use our correction contact below to flag an article.

Continuous update policy

When a supported development concerns an incident we already cover, we update the existing article and identify the source and time of the change. A similar headline or the same town does not establish that two reports concern the same incident. Uncertain matches remain on hold.

New reports and updates undergo automated checks for source support, incident identity and victim privacy. An update must add a substantive development supported by the source record. A failed check prevents automatic publication. Charges, causes, casualty counts and identities must not be inferred from a headline or a loosely related report.

A substantive update changes the article's displayed update time. It does not reset the original publication date or make an old story newly published. When our archive cannot establish an original publication date, we say so rather than substituting the incident date.

Corrections policy

We correct errors quickly and visibly. If we got something wrong — a name, a location, a vehicle count, a sequence of events — we update the article with a dated Correction explaining the change. We remove incorrect claims from the current text. Privacy corrections also remove identifying details from links, summaries and other public surfaces; the correction note does not repeat protected information. A private record preserves the earlier version and the reason for the change.

To request a correction, email corrections@longislandtraffic.com with:

  1. The article URL.
  2. The specific text or fact that's wrong.
  3. The correct information, ideally with a source we can verify.

Please include a source or document that helps us verify the correction. We prioritize reports of factual errors and identifying details involving protected people. A correction can remove inaccurate text as well as add a dated explanation.

Contacting the editorial team