Babylon Village Residents Outraged Over Dangerous Drag Racing Throughout Town

BABYLON VILLAGE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- Residents of a Suffolk County neighborhood are afraid to send their kids outside. They say with the start of summer, their main street becomes a drag strip.

The Focarile family dog is fenced in from Fire Island Avenue and the children are only allowed to play in their Babylon backyard, CBS2's Jennifer McLogan reported.

The new safety measures hope to avoid the speeding all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes taking over the streets.

"We have three little kids and speeding down the road all hours of the night on ATVs, motorcycles, doing tricks, racing," Babylon Village resident Sonya Focarile said.

"I'd like to see more stop signs and patrolling officers. I'm not crazy about the idea of speed bumps," Anthony Focarile said.

Fire Island Avenue is the main road leading to the village docks, the busy marina, swimming pool, and playgrounds. The stretch of street ends up at the bay where locals say groups of teens and young adults with revved engines are making life dangerous for those fishing or enjoying their boats.

"We are coming up to our summer months, the village pool opens up very shortly, so you are going to have over 800 families starting to go down there on a daily basis," Babylon Village Mayor Ralph Scordino told CBS2.

Scordino fielded dozens of calls and complaints and immediately sent down code officers to patrol, in addition to calling in Suffolk police for reinforcement.

Officials also discovered the parking field at night was filling up with marijuana users.

"That's compounding bad things -- makes it even more dangerous, so we are getting on top of it," Deputy Inspector Joseph Busweiller said." We have guys down there in plainclothes and uniform stopping them."

Homeowners are grateful for the help and eager for arrests.

"I have three cats. They can't walk across the street, nobody stops for these stop signs, we actually put cones out in the middle of the road over here," Babylon Village resident Ian Rose said.

Police issued 32 traffic summonses along Fire Island Avenue last year. Residents say they the ATV crackdown needs to start now before a child or pet is hurt. Residents say dragsters reach speeds of 60 miles per hour on their street with a 30 mile per hour limit.