Case highlights debate over pedestrian laws

Molly Ball

Monday, Dec. 6, 2004 | 10:43 a.m.

A month after being hit by a truck crossing the street, Ray Lawson is still in a coma.

He can open his eyes, but doctors don't know if he can recognize anything. Sometimes, when his mother talks to him, his heartbeat speeds up or his blood pressure increases.

"It's heartbreaking to walk in and look at him lying there in bed knowing how he was busted up," said 70-year-old Gail Lawson, who visits her son daily.

According to police, Ray Lawson, 49, was crossing Tropicana Avenue in the marked crosswalk at Rollingwood Avenue, between Sandhill Road and the entrance to U.S. 95.

Witnesses said Lawson crossed to the median and stopped, then proceeded when the stopped driver in the inner lane waved him across. But a pickup truck in the center lane didn't stop.

It is unclear where the legal case stands. Metro Police last week said they had handed it over to the district attorney's office with a recommended charge of failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

But the case is not in the district attorney's computer system. Chief Deputy District Attorney Ron Bloxham, who screens cases to decide what the charges will be, said he didn't know where it could have gone, but occasionally cases are sent back to Metro because of a lack of identifying information.

Lawson's family members said police haven't told them much, but they have little hope the driver, 42-year-old Jorge Munoz, will face anything more than a slap on the wrist.

"I'm not real happy that all that gentleman is probably going to get is a citation while my brother's still on life support," Lawson's sister, Lynn Lawson, said.

Lynn Lawson said she understands that everyone makes mistakes while driving and that any mistake can be a fatal one. But in this case, she said, the driver should have seen the stopped car in the other lane.

"I don't understand why this gentleman isn't getting slapped with attempted manslaughter," she said. "That's pretty much a slap on the face to my family."

Ironically, it was Ray Lawson's attempt to abide by traffic laws that nearly got him killed, Lynn Lawson said: He walked everywhere to avoid driving without insurance.

Rather than manslaughter, in a case like this one prosecutors would probably consider a possible charge of reckless driving, which carries the same penalties, Chief Deputy District Attorney Scott Mitchell said.

Reckless driving causing substantial bodily injury or death is a felony punishable by one to six years in prison and as much as $5,000 in fines.

According to the statute, it must be proven that a driver showed "willful or wanton disregard of the safety of persons or property." In layman's terms, that would be driving in a manner that might cause a bystander to shout, "You're going to get someone killed!"

To convict someone for reckless driving, "you've got to prove that the driving was outrageous," Mitchell said.

Police have said they use a standard to judge whether driving was reckless: the driver must be committing more than one violation -- such as speeding and running a red light -- or must be going double the speed limit.

But that standard is not in the statute, Mitchell noted. He said a driver who only broke one traffic law could easily be considered reckless; for example, simply breezing through a stop sign is an incredibly dangerous thing to do. "That's wanton behavior," Mitchell said.

Mitchell had not seen the Lawson case, since it was missing from the computer system. He said the facts of the case would show whether Munoz acted recklessly -- for example, if witnesses said he swerved around the stopped car.

"If that's what they show, that's felony reckless driving," he said.

Whether Munoz swerved or was already in the center lane is not clear from the pages of the report provided by Metro, and the detective could not be reached on Friday.

Metro spokesman Sgt. Chris Jones said, however, that too often when someone dies as a result of a tragic accident, people want someone to be punished.

"Where do we draw the line?" he said. "Do we want people who are good citizens who get into an accident to be sent to prison? Everybody who drives has run a stop sign. But for the grace of God, they would have killed someone."

One thing this case points out is a law most drivers aren't aware of: If you see a stopped car, you must slow down until you determine why it has stopped, said pedestrian advocate Erin Breen, leader of the Safe Community Partnership at UNLV.

"This case is a perfect example of why it's illegal to overtake another vehicle stopped in the road," she said.

The incident also points out that pedestrians in Las Vegas -- recently ranked the 11th unfriendliest city in the U.S. for walkers -- can never be too careful, Breen said. Just because you have the legal right-of-way doesn't mean a car will stop for you, and you're the one who will end up in the hospital, she warned.

"The most dangerous thing for a pedestrian is to be lulled into a sense of safety," as Lawson was when the driver waved him across, she said.

Neighborhood residents say they're surprised more people haven't met Ray Lawson's fate.

The Sims family, whose backyard is separated from the southeast corner of Tropicana and Rollingwood by a wall, say they see accidents there three or four times a week.

Andy Sims, 42, a mechanic for Southwest Airlines, is matter-of-fact about the many times -- six by his count -- cars have slammed through that wall.

He barely raises his eyebrows as he says things like, "We keep blankets on hand for shock victims," or, "I was about three-quarters of the way finished building the wall from one accident when another one crashed through and I had to start all over."

Once, Sims said, a car that went through the wall caught fire with a woman trapped inside, unconscious. Sims went to his backyard with a fire extinguisher and put it out.

"People see the light turning up ahead and think they can cut through the neighborhood, and they end up on our wall," he said. Sims said he's surprised more pedestrians haven't been hurt while walking toward or waiting at the bus stop along that backyard wall.

The bus stop is just a few feet down from the concrete pillars the Simses have installed to prevent more cars from smashing through the wall, flinging cinderblocks at the rear of the house.

The problems of the intersection are many, Sims said. Tropicana slopes downward going east, limiting visibility and increasing speed. Traffic is heavy on Tropicana and sometimes backs up between the two lights. People coming off the highway haven't slowed to the legal 45 mph -- which is still too fast, Sims contends.

Sims and others have repeatedly asked the state Department of Transportation to do something about that corner, such as a flashing yellow light, reducing the speed limit, or a demand signal that would be activated by cross-traffic or pedestrians.

The department always investigates the residents' complaints, spokesman Bob McKenzie said, and the fact is that intersection just isn't a problem.

Most recently, an engineer checked out the scene on Nov. 23, after Ray Lawson's Nov. 6 injury.

"In general, there is no identifiable problem at the intersection," engineer Kent Sears wrote in a memo. Despite what the residents said, there were not that many collisions reported at the intersection, he wrote.

Drivers turning onto Tropicana might not be waiting for enough of a break in traffic before turning, Sears wrote, but there was nothing wrong with the intersection itself.

The residents have arranged a meeting with County Commissioner Rory Reid today to discuss their complaints. Reid said Friday that he and members of his staff have visited the intersection, and they do think there's a problem.

"If there has been more than one accident in a given location and something can be done to prevent future accidents, we ought to try to do that," Reid said. "To suggest that there's no problem, I don't understand that."

Meanwhile, Gail Lawson, who lived with her son and depended on him financially, says she will probably have to sell the house they inhabited for 12 years.

"That intersection has been so bad for the 12 years I've been there," she said. "I'm surprised that someone else wasn't hurt like Ray was."

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