Editorial: Call boxes can become lifesavers

Monday, July 9, 2001 | 8:53 a.m.

For any motorist who has made the trek from Las Vegas to Southern California on Interstate 15, one of the things that you quickly notice after driving just a few miles past the California state line are all the telephone call boxes. These call boxes, which appear from one-half mile to every mile, are godsends for motorists whose vehicles break down. Instead of having to walk for tens of miles to the nearest town, or take the risk of hitchhiking with a stranger to get to a gas station, all a stranded motorist has to do is take a relatively short hike to one of these call boxes to phone the California Highway Patrol to arrange for assistance.

That is why it is encouraging that the Nevada Legislature recently set aside $500,000 to implement a similar emergency call-box system in Nevada along I-15 from Lake Mead Drive to the California border. Interestingly enough, the Nevada Department of Transportation, which will be responsible for implementing the program, initially didn't back the construction of these call boxes. The department, which no longer opposes the new policy, earlier had claimed that because there are so many cellular phones in use, that call boxes quickly will become an antiquated technology. While prices for the phones and the monthly billing charges have come down dramatically in the past decade, the reality is not everyone can afford the annual charges for such a phone. Even a spokeswoman for Sprint PCS, which offers cellular phone service, acknowledges that call boxes are a go od idea since not everybody has a cellular phone.

Breaking down in the middle of nowhere, especially during the night, can be a frightening experience since criminals tend to prey on these very situations. And in the middle of the summer, heat exhaustion is a dangerous possibility if you're trying to walk to the nearest town in the middle of the desert. Installing call boxes along I-15 is a sensible move that is an insurance policy of sorts for stranded motorists.