The Tocci family of Flanders, still reeling from the death of Barbara Tocci in a head-on collision on Flanders Road Jan. 16, has decided to send a loud and clear message to the public:

Save a Life: DO NOT TEXT & DRIVE.

Susan Tocci had a billboard erected on her Flanders Road property yesterday carrying that message alongside a large image of her sister Barbara’s smiling face.

Beneath the warning is a simple memoriam that reads, “Barbara Tocci 1966-2014.”

Tocci said she got tired of waiting for Southampton Police to issue their official conclusions about the causes of the crash that killed her sister on that cold January morning as the 47-year-old grandmother traveled to her job at a Riverhead title company.

“It’s been almost six months,” she said.

A southbound GMC utility truck driven by Michael Pepe Jr. of Bayport crossed into the northbound lane and collided head-on with the Ford Explorer operated by Barbara Tocci just before 8 a.m. on Flanders Road, just south of Spinney Road. Tocci was pronounced dead at the scene. See prior story.

The section of roadway where the crash occurred was riddled with crater-size potholes about which local residents had been complaining for some time according to the town’s local Citizens Advisory Committee chairman Richard Naso.

“People complained to the state DOT dozens and dozens of times, but it all seems to fall on deaf ears with the state,” Naso told RiverheadLOCAL in January.

State DOT road repair crews were dispatched to Flanders Road, officially known as State Route 24, the afternoon of the accident.

“Why does it take a death to get a response?” Naso asked.

“Defective pavement” was one of the “apparent contributing factors” in the crash, according to an accident report prepared by a Southampton Town Police Officer Anthony Vecchio on the date of the crash.

On the day of the accident, Pepe told police he struck a pothole in the southbound lane that caused him to lose control of the truck and sent him into the northbound lane, where he collided head-on into Tocci’s SUV.

But the accident report also lists Pepe’s use of a hand-held cell phone as another “apparent contributing factor.” The report does not indicate whether Pepe was talking or texting with his hand-held device around the time of the accident.

Susan Tocci said an investigator with the Suffolk County district attorney’s office told the victim’s family they found evidence that the utility company worker was texting on his personal cell phone prior to the accident. That’s what inspired the billboard, she said.

Police have not yet reached any official determination as to the cause of the accident, Southampton Town Police Det. Susan Ralph said this week. No charges have been filed, according to police..

The New York State Police Forensic ID and Collision Reconstruction Unit, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s vehicular crimes bureau have assisted the town police with the ongoing investigation, police said.

Susan Tocci said her family is extremely frustrated that police have not come to any conclusions about her sister’s death.

The family has had more than its share of tragedy in 2014.

Three-and-a-half months after losing his mother in the crash, Barbara Tocci’s son, Thomas Podlas, who lives in California, lost his fiancee, Hayley Riggins, in a motor vehicle accident with an allegedly drugged driver. Riggens left behind the couple’s infant daughter Kadence.

Susan Tocci dedicated a second billboard sign on Flanders Road to Hayley. It has a picture of Riggins and her daughter, with the message: “Kadence will grow up WITHOUT HER MOM. DO NOT DRIVE UNDER THE INFLUENCE. Hayley Riggins 1987-2014.”

The driver of the vehicle that struck Riggins’ motorcycle on April 24, Virginia Anderson, 53, is facing a second-degree murder charge as well as DUI with injury. According to media reports, police say Anderson admitted to using prescription drugs, marijuana and methamphetamine. Riggins, who suffered serious head trauma in the crash, was in a coma and died April 30 after being removed from life support systems.

“I just want to do whatever I can to spread the word about the dangers of texting while driving and driving under the influence,” Susan Tocci said.

“I wish the [Southampton Town] police would speak out,” she said.