Valley’s growth major reason fatality rate high for those on foot

Shaunta Grimes

Thursday, Oct. 28, 1999 | 11:32 a.m.

The congested streets of booming Las Vegas are becoming more and more dangerous for pedestrians.

Eleven-year-old Leonard Williams Jr. became Clark County's 36th pedestrian fatality Sunday when he was frightened by a dog, ran into the street and was hit by a van.

While the boy's death was a tragedy that probably could not have been avoided, dozens of pedestrians are killed by cars every year in accidents that might have been prevented, experts say.

Leonard's death puts Clark County well on the way to surpassing the record 45 pedestrians killed in 1997, said Erin Breen, director of the Safe Community Partnership at UNLV.

At this time last year, there were 38 pedestrian fatalities in Nevada with 24 of those in Clark County, said Bruce Mackey, the state education officer for bicycle and pedestrian safety for the Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety.

Nevada is ranked fourth in the nation for pedestrian fatalities, according to the DMV, and 75.6 percent of the fatalities annually occur in Clark County.

Mackey said that 70 percent of the pedestrian fatalities in Nevada are men. "Men just seem to think they can make it. It's an unfortunate macho thing."

The increase in additional pedestrian deaths this year can primarily be attributed to the rapidly increasing population in the Las Vegas Valley, Breen said.

But sometimes accidents just aren't avoidable, she said.

The boy's grandmother, Lula Lynch, said Wednesday that there was probably no way for his death to have been prevented. She believes the van driver swerved to miss the dog and didn't see her grandson.

"This is just one of them things that happen," Lynch said Wednesday.

Extremely wide streets and unusually long distances between blocks are two major contributors to the one mistake that leads to at least 80 percent of pedestrian fatalities -- jaywalking, Breen said.

"If you ask anyone honestly, if the grocery store they are trying to get to is across the street from where they are and they have to walk 500 feet to get to a crosswalk and then 500 feet back up to the store, not many people are going to do that. It's human nature to take the path of least resistance," Breen said.

For the pedestrian that does choose to walk to a crosswalk, there is little reward, Breen added.

"The traffic lights are very long, and then they take their lives into their hands trying to cross with drivers blowing red lights or making right hand turns on red lights without looking," she said.

Mid-block crossing to get to the grocery store netted Mark Pearson of Las Vegas a jaywalking citation earlier this month.

"I'm 42 years old. I know how to cross the street," Pearson said, noting that if police are going to crack down on jaywalkers they should start by issuing warnings.

Pearson said he works the graveyard shift at the Tropicana hotel-casino and was walking to the store soon after returning home after work. "Sure it might have been lazy, but I was tired and I knew I could get across the street with no problems. I know how to look both ways," he said.

The officers who cited Pearson told him they were trying to protect him, but Pearson isn't buying that. A warning would have achieved the same goal without forcing Pearson to pay a fine, he said.

Breen said while there are many contributing factors to the problem of pedestrian fatalities, she does not include poor city planning among them.

"No one could have predicted what would happen to this town. No one would have looked at Clark County in the beginning and have seen this kind of growth," she said.

Breen said in the future, however, engineers must plan for pedestrians. Safe bicycle lanes, mid-block crosswalks and narrower lanes for cars are ideas that might lead to fewer deaths.

Educating the walking public might help too, Breen said. Most people do not know how to interpret the pedestrian traffic lights, she said. Many people think the white walking man means "go," and the flashing or solid red hand means "don't go."

The flashing red hand actually means "if you are in the cross walk already, you have plenty of time," Breen said.

Many elderly people especially are confused by the flashing red hand, and when it starts flashing when they are in the middle of the street, they freeze, wondering if they should continue or go back.

"Often they will make a mad dash for the median and wait there for the next light, when really, they had plenty of time to get across," Breen said.

Breen said making the streets safe for pedestrians and giving them time to cross at a cross walk is important to the community.

"When being a pedestrian means taking your life into your own hands or having to walk so far out of your way to cross legally, people are just going to get into their cars and drive. We are trying to get people out of their cars and walking," Breen said.