Montauk, NY — Crash Data, Roads, History & Law

Montauk is an unincorporated hamlet in the Town of East Hampton, Suffolk County, New York, with 4,318 residents at the 2020 Census. Federal crash records show 6 fatal crashes that killed 6 people within its boundaries from 2010 through 2024 — 2 of them on foot. Montauk Highway (NY 27) accounted for more of those deaths (3) than any other road. Residents who commute travel an average of 23 minutes each way.

Long Island Town Fact Book · Updated · Sources & method

Montauk at a glance

Status
Hamlet (unincorporated; census-designated place)
Town
East Hampton
County
Suffolk County
Population (2020 Census)
4,318[C]
Housing units (2020)
4,487
Land area
18.49 sq mi (plus 17.34 sq mi of water)
Density
234 people per sq mi
Average commute
23 minutes[B]
Traffic deaths, 2010–2024
6[A]
ZIP Code
11954
Founded / settled
No single founding or first-settlement date for Montauk was verified. The Montauk Historical Society's own account of its founding notes that its first president spent the 1950s cataloguing the '1648-1955 East Hampton Trustees' Journals,' indicating Montauk's land was long managed as common land of the Town of East Hampton (founded 1648) rather than settled as an independent community.[6]
Legal status
Unincorporated hamlet of the Town of East Hampton; tabulated by the Census Bureau as the Montauk CDP[8]
Lighthouse
Montauk Point Lighthouse authorized by the Second Congress under President Washington in 1792; construction began June 7, 1796 and was completed November 5, 1796[1]
Lighthouse today
Oldest lighthouse in New York State; automated by the Coast Guard in 1987; ownership transferred to the Montauk Historical Society in 1996; designated a National Historic Landmark March 5, 2012[1]
Carl Fisher purchase
Reported as approximately 9,000-10,000 acres bought in 1925 for $2,500,000 (sources differ on the acreage)[3][4]
Police
East Hampton Town Police Department, 131 Wainscott Northwest Road, Wainscott[8]
Court
East Hampton Town Justice Court, 159 Pantigo Road, East Hampton (jurisdiction covers the Town, including Montauk)[9]
School district
Montauk Union Free School District[12]
Census geography
Montauk CDP · GEOID 3648054 · GNIS 2389495
Coordinates
41.0475°N, 71.9464°W

Hamlets in New York have no legal boundary or government of their own. Figures here use the Census Bureau's census-designated place, the standard statistical outline for the community; local usage of the name can be wider or narrower.

Fatal crashes in Montauk, 2010–2024

From January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2024, 6 people died in 6 crashes on public roads inside Montauk, according to the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System.[A] Pedestrians account for 2 of those deaths (33%). The deadliest year was 2016, with 2 deaths.

Fatal crashes
6
People killed
6
Pedestrians
2
Bicyclists
1
Motorcyclists
0
Vehicle occupants
3
Traffic deaths in Montauk by year, 2010–2024
0 ’10 1 ’11 1 ’12 1 ’13 0 ’14 0 ’15 2 ’16 0 ’17 0 ’18 1 ’19 0 ’20 0 ’21 0 ’22 0 ’23 0 ’24

2024 figures come from NHTSA's Annual Report File and may be revised.

View the chart as a table
YearFatal crashesDeaths
201000
201111
201211
201311
201400
201500
201622
201700
201800
201911
202000
202100
202200
202300
202400

Roads where people died

RoadCrashesDeaths
Montauk Highway (NY 27) 3 3
Flamingo Ave (CR 49) 2 2
E Lake Dr 1 1

Road names as recorded by police and normalised to common Long Island names.

When and where

  • Of the 6 crashes with a recorded time, 2 happened between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., 1 between 4 and 8 p.m., 3 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and 0 between 6 and 10 a.m.
  • 50% happened in darkness.
  • 0 of the 6 deaths were on expressways or parkways; 6 were on arterials and local streets.

Who owns the roads where they happened (2015–2024)

FARS has recorded the owner of the roadway since 2015. Of the 3 fatal crashes in Montauk since then:

  • County roads 1 (33%)
  • State highways 1 (33%)
  • Town roads 1 (33%)

Ownership matters in New York because claims against a county, town, city or village generally require a notice of claim within 90 days (General Municipal Law § 50-e), while claims against the State are brought in the Court of Claims under Court of Claims Act § 10. This is general information, not legal advice.

Rate: 9.3 traffic deaths per 100,000 residents per year, against 9.1 for Suffolk County. This is a resident-based rate, not a measure of how risky the roads are to drive: crashes are counted where they happen, not where the people involved live, so a small community crossed by a major highway shows a high rate. With 4,318 residents, a single crash moves Montauk's rate substantially.

Every fatal crash on record

DateTimeRoadDeathsWho diedLight
6 p.m. Flamingo Ave (CR 49) 1 Bicyclist dark
12 p.m. Montauk Highway (NY 27) 1 Vehicle occupant daylight
10 a.m. E Lake Dr 1 Pedestrian daylight
9 p.m. Montauk Highway (NY 27) at Montauk Highway (NY 27) 1 Pedestrian dark
9 p.m. Montauk Highway (NY 27) at S Fox St 1 Vehicle occupant dark
3 p.m. Flamingo Ave at Culloden Pl 1 Vehicle occupant daylight

FARS contains no names or personal identifiers. * 2024 records are preliminary. Download all 6 records (CSV) · How this was compiled

Recent Montauk Incident Reports

Alan Vasquez & Joshua Semander: Two DWI Arrests Hours Apart on Montauk Highway in East Quogue and Water Mill

LIRR Montauk Branch Service Suspended After Person Struck by Train East of Sayville

Westbound Driver Charged with Drug Impairment in Multi-Vehicle Montauk Highway Crash

Updated continuously from 511NY, NYSP, NCPD, and SCPD feeds — all Long Island reports.

All reported crashes in the Town of East Hampton, 2021–2024

New York's crash file codes each crash to a town, city or village — never to a hamlet — so the finest official count that covers Montauk is for the Town of East Hampton, which contains it. Police reported 2,486 crashes there from 2021 through 2024 — about 1.7 a day. 418 (16.8%) injured someone and 5 were fatal. [D]

Police-reported crashes, Town of East Hampton
2021202220232024Total
6486664856872,486
Injury crashes
418
Fatal crashes
5
Struck a pedestrian
20
Struck a bicyclist
42
Struck a deer
355

Deer collisions are 14.3% of all reported crashes here. Counts are crashes, not people. The municipality is entered by the reporting police agency, and coding is less consistent for small villages, so compare places with care.

How Montauk gets to work

Montauk commuters travel an average of 23 minutes each way, 8.1 minutes shorter than the Suffolk County average (the national average is 26.4 minutes). About 65.7% of workers drive alone. [B]

Commuting and vehicle access, 2020–2024 (American Community Survey 5-year estimates)
Measure Montauk Suffolk County New York State United States
Average one-way commute 23 min ±8.5 31.1 min 32.6 min 26.4 min
Commute 60 minutes or longer 10.4% ±5.6 † 14.1% 16.8% 8.6%
Commute under 15 minutes 53.1% ±7.3 22.8% 20.5% 26%
Drive alone 65.7% ±7.2 72.1% 48.8% 68.8%
Carpool 2.8% ±2 † 7.5% 6.3% 8.5%
Commuter rail (LIRR) 1.4% ±1.6 † 3.2% 1.8% 0.3%
Bus 0.3% ±0.5 † 0.6% 5.1% 1.5%
Walk 3.6% ±3.6 † 1.4% 5.6% 2.4%
Work from home 20.3% ±5 12% 14.9% 15.1%
Leave home before 6 a.m. 4.4% ±2.7 † 12% 10.6% 14.4%
Households with no vehicle 4.6% ±3.1 † 5.1% 29.2% 8.4%
Households with three or more vehicles 22.5% ±6.6 28.8% 11.8% 21.9%

Survey estimates for 2,117 workers aged 16 and over; ± values are 90% margins of error. † Small sample — the margin of error is large relative to the estimate, so treat the figure as indicative only. Travel-time rows exclude people who work from home.

Notable facts about Montauk

  • The Montauk Point Lighthouse, the oldest lighthouse in New York State, was authorized by the Second Congress under President George Washington in 1792 and completed on November 5, 1796.[1]
  • Ownership of the Montauk Point Lighthouse passed from the U.S. Coast Guard to the nonprofit Montauk Historical Society in 1996, a decade after the light was automated in 1987.[1]
  • In 1839, Africans who had mutinied aboard the schooner La Amistad came ashore at Culloden Point in Montauk before their case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1841.[5][7]
  • An East Hampton Star front page from around September 25, 1925 announced that Carl Fisher, developer of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Miami Beach, had bought 9,000 acres in Montauk for $2,500,000.[4]
  • Carl Fisher's 1920s development of Montauk included clearing an inlet from Block Island Sound into what became Lake Montauk, in 1927.[3]
  • The Town of East Hampton bought Carl Fisher's former Montauk residence at the end of 2021 using Community Preservation Fund money.[3]

History

Montauk is the easternmost hamlet of the Town of East Hampton. Its land was long administered as common land of the town rather than settled as an independent community; the Montauk Historical Society notes that its founding president spent the 1950s, while East Hampton Town Clerk, indexing the town's own 1648-1955 Trustees' Journals, the records of the body that historically managed common lands including Montauk.[6] The Montauk Historical Society itself was incorporated in January 1962, "just as our hamlet was on the cusp of rapidly transforming from a remote fishing village into a busy summer resort."[6]

A notable but little-connected episode in Montauk's history is its link to the schooner La Amistad: in 1839 a group of illegally enslaved Africans who had mutinied aboard the ship came ashore at Culloden Point in Montauk seeking fresh water and food before their vessel was seized and towed to Connecticut.[5] The dispute over their status went to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose 1841 decision affirmed that they were free.[7] The Montauk Historical Society, the Eastville Community Historical Society and the Southampton African American Museum dedicated a historical marker at Culloden Point Beach commemorating the crew in 2023.[5]

In September 1925 the East Hampton Star's front page announced Carl Fisher's purchase of Montauk land for a planned resort, under the headline "CARL FISHER BUYS 9,000 ACRES AT MONTAUK FOR $2,500,000 PLANS HUGE DEVELOPMENT"; the Montauk Historical Society, which now owns Fisher's former house, separately describes the purchase as "approximately 10,000 unspoiled acres" — the two figures differ.[3][4] Fisher, previously the developer of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Miami Beach, built roads, a water system, the Montauk Manor, a yacht club, a golf club, a school, a seven-story office building and other infrastructure, and in 1927 had an inlet cleared from Block Island Sound into what became Lake Montauk.[3] His venture ultimately failed. His house at 44 Foxboro Road was purchased by the Town of East Hampton at the end of 2021 using Community Preservation Fund money, for eventual use as a museum.[3]

Law and legal history

Montauk's clearest tie to reported federal law runs through the schooner La Amistad. After the 1839 mutiny and the captives' landing at Culloden Point, the ship was seized and its cargo, including the Africans aboard, became the subject of United States v. The Amistad, 40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 518 (1841).[7] The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's decree that the Africans had been unlawfully enslaved and imported in violation of Spanish law and were entitled to their freedom rather than to be returned to the Spanish claimants who sought their return as property.[7] No part of the litigation was conducted in Montauk itself; the connection is that the captives first came ashore there.[5]

The Montauk Point Lighthouse's own governance has a federal legal history: authorized by the Second Congress under President Washington in 1792 and completed in 1796, it was later placed under a preservation program through which the Coast Guard transferred ownership to the private, nonprofit Montauk Historical Society in 1996, and it was designated a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior on March 5, 2012.[1]

Cases of record

United States v. The Amistad, 40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 518 (1841)[7]
U.S. Supreme Court, 1841. The Africans at the center of the case first came ashore in the United States at Culloden Point, Montauk, in 1839, after mutinying aboard the schooner La Amistad, before the ship was seized and taken to Connecticut.Affirmed the lower court's decree that the Africans aboard the Amistad had been unlawfully kidnapped and imported into Cuba in violation of Spanish law and were therefore free, rather than property to be restored to the Spanish claimants.

Each summary describes the cited decision only. Later appellate history is noted where we found it, but it has not been checked systematically — confirm a case's current status with a citator before relying on it. General information, not legal advice.

Government, courts and policing

Montauk has no government of its own; it is policed by the East Hampton Town Police Department, which is headquartered not in Montauk but at 131 Wainscott Northwest Road in Wainscott, and reports 65 sworn officers handling nearly 20,000 calls for service a year town-wide.[8] Criminal, traffic and civil matters from Montauk go to the East Hampton Town Justice Court at 159 Pantigo Road in East Hampton, which "has original jurisdiction over all crimes occurring in the Village and Town of East Hampton, and handles violations and misdemeanors to conclusion," as well as traffic, parking, code, civil, small-claims and landlord-tenant matters.[9]

Public education is provided by the Montauk Union Free School District.[12]

Landmarks and listed places

  • Montauk Point Lighthouse — National Historic Landmark, designated March 5, 2012; oldest lighthouse in New York State[1]
  • Carl Fisher House (44 Foxboro Road) — Purchased by the Town of East Hampton in 2021 using Community Preservation Fund money; no register listing verified[3]

Montauk timeline

  1. Lighthouse authorized. The Second Congress, under President George Washington, authorized the Montauk Point Lighthouse.[1]
  2. Lighthouse construction begins. Construction began on the Montauk Point Lighthouse.[1]
  3. Lighthouse completed. Construction was completed; Jacob Hand was appointed the first keeper the same month.[1]
  4. Amistad captives land at Montauk. A group of Africans who had mutinied aboard the schooner La Amistad came ashore at Culloden Point in Montauk seeking food and water before their ship was seized.[5]
  5. United States v. The Amistad decided. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a decree freeing the Amistad captives.[7]
  6. Return to Sierra Leone. The Montauk Historical Society's account states that 35 freed Africans from the Amistad returned by boat to Sierra Leone.[5]
  7. Carl Fisher buys Montauk land. The East Hampton Star reported Carl Fisher's purchase of Montauk land for a planned resort development, in a front-page headline the Montauk Historical Society dates to on or about September 25, 1925.[4]
  8. Lake Montauk inlet cleared. Fisher's development included clearing an inlet from Block Island Sound into what became Lake Montauk.[3]
  9. Montauk Historical Society incorporated. The Montauk Historical Society was incorporated.[6]
  10. Lighthouse automated. The Coast Guard automated the Montauk Point Lighthouse, ending the resident-keeper era.[1]
  11. Lighthouse ownership transferred. The Coast Guard transferred ownership of the lighthouse to the Montauk Historical Society.[1]
  12. Lighthouse designated a National Historic Landmark. The Secretary of the Interior designated the Montauk Point Lighthouse a National Historic Landmark.[1]
  13. Town buys Fisher House. The Town of East Hampton purchased Carl Fisher's former residence using Community Preservation Fund money.[3]

Major roads in and around Montauk

Emergency Resources

Hospitals

  • Stony Brook Southampton Hospital — 240 Meeting House Lane, Southampton, NY 11968 — (631) 726-8200

Police

  • East Hampton Town Police Department — 131 Wainscott Northwest Road, P.O. Box 909, Wainscott, NY 11975 — (631) 537-7575 (Town-wide police agency covering Montauk; headquarters is in Wainscott, not Montauk. Emergencies: 911.)

Courts

  • East Hampton Town Justice Court — 159 Pantigo Road, East Hampton, NY 11937 — (631) 324-4134 (Original jurisdiction over crimes in the Village and Town of East Hampton, including Montauk; handles traffic, parking, code, civil and small-claims matters.)

Local Driver Services in Montauk

Practical resources for Montauk drivers — tire shops, gas prices, and live traffic conditions.

Gas Prices Cheapest Gas in Montauk Updated daily from station feeds Construction Active Long Island Construction Live work-zone directory Live Map Real-time Long Island Traffic Accidents, closures, and weather

Safety Resources

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I do after a car accident in Montauk, NY?

Move to safety and call 911 immediately, then document the scene with photos and exchange insurance and contact information with everyone involved. File a police report with SCPD and notify your insurer promptly. New York is a no-fault state, so your own PIP coverage pays initial medical costs regardless of fault, and you have just 30 days to file the NF-2 application.

Which roads are most dangerous in Montauk?

Montauk Highway and Old Montauk Highway carry the heaviest traffic through Montauk and account for most of the reported crashes we track. Montauk Highway (NY 27) — the single road in and out of the hamlet, with severe summer-weekend congestion. Commercial driveways, signalized intersections, and turning movements along these corridors drive the local crash mix.

How current are these Montauk accident reports?

Long Island Traffic adds new reports every 2–4 hours from 511NY, NYS Police Troop L, SCPD, and verified local news. Scroll up for the latest Montauk and Suffolk County incidents, and check the "Dangerous Roads" section for corridor-level breakdowns.

Do I need a lawyer after a Montauk accident?

If you suffered serious injuries, significant property damage, or the other driver was uninsured, consulting a Suffolk County personal injury attorney is strongly recommended. Many firms offer free consultations and work on contingency. See our free guides at /know-your-rights/car-accidents/ and /know-your-rights/insurance-claims/.

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Data: machine-readable fact sheet (JSON) · fatal-crash records (CSV) · methodology and limits

References

Datasets

  1. [A] National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2010–2024 national files. Retrieved September 17, 2026.Crashes on public trafficways in which a person died within 30 days. No personal identifiers. Placed by reported coordinates into 2020 Census boundaries.
  2. [B] U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-Year Estimates, tables B08303, B08013, B08301, B08302, B08201, B19013, B01002. Retrieved September 17, 2026.Survey estimates with 90% margins of error. lowReliability = coefficient of variation above 30%.
  3. [C] U.S. Census Bureau, TIGERweb — 2020 Census tabulation geography (POP100, HU100, AREALAND). Retrieved September 17, 2026.
  4. [D] New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, Motor Vehicle Crashes — Case Information: Four Year Window. Retrieved September 17, 2026.Police-reported crashes coded to a town, city or village by the reporting agency. Hamlets are not coded; hamlet pages show the parent town.

Sources for history, roads and law

  1. [1] Montauk Historical Society. Lighthouse History (2026). Historical society.
  2. [3] Montauk Historical Society. Carl Fisher House (2026). Historical society.
  3. [4] Montauk Historical Society, reproducing East Hampton Star reporting by Christopher Walsh. Carl Fisher's Montauk, 100 Years Ago (2025). Historical society.
  4. [5] Montauk Historical Society. New Marker in Montauk Honors Amistad Crew (2023). Historical society.
  5. [6] Montauk Historical Society. Our History (2026). Historical society.
  6. [7] Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute. The Amistad, 40 U.S. 518 (1841) (1841). Court decision.
  7. [8] Town of East Hampton. Police (2026). Government record.
  8. [9] Town of East Hampton. Justice Court (2026). Government record.
  9. [12] Montauk Union Free School District. Montauk School (home page) (2026). Government record.
  10. [13] Stony Brook Medicine. Stony Brook Southampton Hospital (home page) (2026). Academic.

Sources opened and checked September 17, 2026.