Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Stiffer penalties sought in pedestrian cases

An activist group that promotes safety on the roads says it will seek a change in Nevada law in the 2005 Legislature to stiffen penalties for motorists who, because of inattentive driving, seriously injure or kill pedestrians.

Safe Community Partnership wants a law that will increase the penalty from a mere traffic violation to a gross misdemeanor in major auto-pedestrian accidents.

"Our roads are engineered for vehicles -- wide, flat and fast -- where the car is king and there is no hope for the person on foot," Erin Breen, director of the Safe Community Partnership, said.

"I'm not saying we need a felony, but we need more than the slap on the wrist of a $95 ticket for failure to yield. Perhaps a gross misdemeanor, but definitely something between a moving violation and a felony."

Breen's comments came after 13-year-old Las Vegan Tabatha Speas died at home last week following a lengthy hospital stay after she was critically injured in an Oct. 15 accident in Southern Highlands.

Speas, who was buried Tuesday night, was the third teenage girl in 16 days to die in accidents where there were no crosswalks or where an existing crosswalk was not maintained.

Speas and her friend, Adriana Lauzon, also 13, were struck by a car as they crossed Shinnecock Hills Avenue near Tucci Street. Lauzon died Oct. 21 at UMC. The accident resulted in a public outcry to put crosswalks into residential neighborhoods where traffic is heavy.

That cause gained further momentum last week when 15-year-old Ashlee Bicknell, a sophomore at Desert Pines High School, was struck by a pickup truck at Bonanza Road and Wardelle Street. Last year the city of Las Vegas opted not to repaint that crosswalk to encourage use of a safer painted crosswalk at a signal light at Bonanza and 28th Street.

The drivers in both incidents have not been cited, and police are still investigating the accidents.

Bruce Nelson, a deputy district attorney in the vehicular crimes unit, said he supports Breen's call for tougher penalties for motorists who violate traffic laws regarding pedestrians, and said in some cases he would like to be able to charge a driver with a felony.

"If you drive through a stop sign and kill someone now, it's a traffic ticket. It's exactly the same as if you drive through a stop sign and don't hit anyone," Nelson said.

He said that tougher penalties would catch drivers' attention, "especially once you had some people in jail."

Bicknell's grand mother Catherine Jackson also wants tougher penalties for drivers who hit pedestrians.

"I hope it would be something that would wake them up a bit," Jackson said.

Mourners at Speas' funeral Tuesday afternoon had similar sentiments.

Vicki Baney, a neighbor and a family friend of Tabatha Speas who could not hold back her tears, said, "Maybe this will be a wake-up call."

Two friends of Speas, however, said the answer is more and improved crosswalks.

"I think they need to add some crosswalks," Tiffany Apollo, 15, said. "We moved in there and we thought it was such a nice neighborhood and then our friend got hit."

Natalie Pereira, 16, said she could not understand why the driver that hit Speas has not been charged.

"They say they won't charge her because it was Tabatha's fault," Pereira said. The accident is still under investigation.

But Metro Police Detective Oscar Chavez, who is investigating both of the deadly accidents, said he doesn't think tougher penalties would lead to fewer accidents.

Chavez said the penalties for a driver in a fatal accident can already be severe.

"You get hit by the court, insurance and then in civil court," Chavez said.

Breen said that while in some states the perception is that it is the driver's responsibility to be on the lookout for pedestrians, in Southern Nevada the pedestrian is perceived by many drivers as a problem.

"As it now stands, unless drivers are drunk, they have little or no fear of anything serious happening to them (in the criminal courts)," Breen said.

"In nearly every instance, they tell police 'I didn't see the pedestrian.' The truth is, they aren't looking for the pedestrian. They are not using due care."

Nevada law says: "A driver of a motor vehicle shall exercise due care to avoid a collision with a pedestrian." State law also says that when any two public roads meet, it creates crosswalk a whether it is painted or not.

Breen said her concept of legislation does not promote adding more crosswalks, as angry Las Vegas residents have called for in recent weeks.

"The issue here is motorist awareness because paint won't save someone's life, but an alert driver will," Breen said. "I don't think the deaths of these three young girls is an anomaly -- I think it is a trend."

Legislators say they are willing to consider Breen's proposed legislation as well as others that may address the mandated addition of painted crosswalks.

"I would absolutely support this type of legislation as long as it is fair and enforceable," said state Sen. Dennis Nolan, R-Las Vegas, a former paramedic who has seen his share of inattentive drivers and the results of their accidents.

"Whatever law we would pass would have to have an educational component. We had to delay our child safety seat law for a year to make way for our public awareness campaign."

Nolan, vice chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said tragedies such as those involving the three girls heighten awareness of problems and give momentum to legislative change.

For instance four years ago, he said, a rural highway incident resulted in a change in U-turn laws after a tractor trailer driver in the middle of the night pulled a U-turn that resulted in a family being killed when their car came over a hill and suddenly ran into the trailer bed.

"You cannot legislate common sense, but if somebody shows blatant disregard or drives carelessly without concern for others' safety and causes major injuries, they should suffer a stiffer penalty," Nolan said.

Nolan disagrees with Clark County and Las Vegas officials who say too many signs and painted crosswalks would create a redundancy resulting either in drivers ignoring them or getting into accidents trying to read a glut of warnings.

"Visual warnings such as pedestrian crossing signs, white lines in the road and flashing lights make drivers more aware of potential hazards," he said.

"When I see kids on sidewalks where there is three lanes of traffic in each direction, and they are trying to time their crossing, I just get scared to death for them."

State Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, who also sits on the transportation committee, said he too could support the type of legislation Breen is proposing.

"There is no doubt in my mind that we will be asked to address this issue at the next Legislature," said Care, an attorney. "As part of the testimony, I would want to see how our current penalties compare to other states."

Care also disagreed with city and county officials who say too many sign and painted crosswalks are redundant.

"That's like saying we have too many school zones," Care said. "Our auto-pedestrian accident rate is high." About 27 percent of all fatalities annually in Metro Police jurisdiction, police say.

"Part of that may be tourists who are not being attentive, but there also is the problem that drivers are not looking out for people who are walking."

The latest case of a pedestrian being hit by a vehicle -- a tourist struck on the Strip shortly before 2 a.m. today -- appeared to be the pedestrian's fault, police said.

Alex Fisher, 22, of Aspen, Colo., was in critical condition today at University Medical Center after being hit by a Ford pickup truck at Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard South.

Instead of using a multimillion-dollar overhead pedestrian walkway, Fisher jumped a four-foot concrete wall topped with serrated plastic to cross "one of the busiest intersections in the Southwest United States," Doug Nutton, a Metro traffic detective, said.

The truck driver, David Behr, 34, of Las Vegas, was not cited because the preliminary finding is that Fisher was to blame, Nutton said, noting that alcohol may have been a factor in the accident.

Between Sept. 1, 2000, and Oct. 4 of this year there were 1,772 auto-pedestrian accidents in Metro's jurisdiction, police said.

Last year, Metro responded to 593 auto-pedestrian accidents, up 17 from 2001. The number of people vs. vehicle accidents this year are on pace to match those numbers with 444 through Oct. 4, the latest date for which total accident data is available, Metro said.

Pedestrian deaths as a percentage of traffic deaths in Metro's jurisdiction have remained pretty consistent the last three years.

To date this year there have been 27 auto-pedestrian fatalities -- about 26 percent of the 104 total number of traffic death, Metro said.

By comparison, in 2002, 35 of the 128 traffic deaths were pedestrians, and in 2001, 28 of the 102 fatalities were auto-pedestrian -- both slightly more than 27 percent of the total fatalities. Sun reporter

Mary Manning contributed to this report.

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