Detective says fatal work zone was not properly marked

Friday, Feb. 13, 2004 | 9:08 a.m.

The landscaping crew involved in a fatal accident Thursday morning did not have proper barriers in place warning drivers men were working in the road, a Metro Police detective said.

A 45-year-old woman struck and killed one of the workers after she swerved to avoid another vehicle traveling the same direction about 8:15 a.m. Thursday, Detective Dennis Magill of Metro's fatal accident section said.

The woman was heading south in a 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser along the 2500 block of Buffalo Drive, just north of Smoke Ranch Road, and may have been going above the 45 mph speed limit, Magill said.

After swerving to the left to avoid another car, the driver swerved back into the far right land and lost control of the car, Magill said. She struck the west curb of Buffalo and hit two of the six TruGreen Lawn Care landscapers cleaning up debris just off the sidewalk.

The impact knocked down Alfredo Godinez, 21. His unidentified co-worker hit the Cruiser's windshield and flew forward, sliding across the asphalt for about 100 feet, Magill said. The man was not dragged as indicated by previous news reports.

It took the driver another 200 feet to stop, Magill said, because she was in shock.

Both workers were taken to University Medical Center Trauma Center, where the man who hit the windshield was pronounced dead. The identity of the victim, described to be in his late 20s or early 30s, has not been released pending notification of his family. Godinez sustained moderate injuries.

Police have not filed charges against the driver pending further investigation, Magill said, but she could face anything from a ticket to felony reckless driving charges. There is no evidence of drugs or alcohol involved, Magill said.

Police said the driver told them she was in a hurry to get to work.

It is uncertain whether the driver saw the landscapers before the accident, Magill said.

"She has very little recollection of the accident," Magill said. "She just remembers swerving to avoid a car and then having an accident."

The landscape crew, however, did not have adequate cones blocking off their work space and did not have a proper barricade plan filed with the city, Magill said.

Whenever landscapers or other public workers need to block off a road lane for their work they must file a barricade plan with the city or the county that shows how they will block off the site and what precautions they will take, Magill said. The proper government entity must approve the plan before the lane can be blocked.

In this incident, landscapers only had a few cones set out, Magill said. Their foreman had dropped the men off at the site and left to check on other employees.

No one from TruGreen Lawn Care returned phone calls Thursday.

Other local landscapers said they put up warning barricades around work zones whenever landscapers work near a street, using cones, tape and their trucks as barriers.

Ralph Weber, general manager of Absolute Landscaping, said his crew typically put up cones four to five feet away from where they are working, starting 40 feet behind and in front of their work space.

Workers also often park their truck half on the sidewalk and half on the street behind the work zone with the hazard lights on to alert drivers there are workers ahead, Weber said.

"Basically that's our only defense, and we hope (drivers) see the cones," Weber said, adding that his company has never had an accident.

Other companies said they sometimes wear orange safety vests as well to draw attention to the workers.

But even at official road construction sites when there are orange barrels, concrete barricades, large warning sizes and flaggers alerting drivers to ongoing road work, many still speed by, Scott Magruder, spokesman for the Nevada Department of Transportation, said.

The department has an ongoing public awareness campaign to warn drivers of the danger of speeding through work zones and pushed through tougher laws doubling the fine if drivers are caught going over the speed limit during the 2003 Legislature, Magruder said.

"Workers say out in the work zone that the majority of people are plain out ignoring them," Magruder said. "We're hoping that with doubling the fine people will slow it down when they see the cones. Our public awareness campaign reminds drivers to use caution when going through a work zone because your life as well as the lives of other motorists and the workers are at risk."

Gov. Kenny Guinn named the law in honor of Lezlee Johnson, a road construction flagger who was killed on the job in May 2002 by a driver under the influence of narcotics.

"Lezlee's Law" imposes the double penalties for reckless driving in all road constructions zones, whether or not the area is fully marked as a construction site and even if workers are not in the construction site. Prior to the new law double penalties were imposed only for speeding while workers were present.

Terry Camarena, 28, a sales associate at Christopher Commercial, which has an office across the street from where the accident happened, arrived at work soon after the accident.

Camarena said speeding traffic and people doing landscape work along the road are both common on that stretch of Buffalo.

"They're always here," she said about landscapers.

Speeders are so frequent, she said, that police set up a speed trap in the area once or twice a month. And when they do, police are constantly pulling people over, she said.

"It's very tragic to hear," Camarena said about the death. "Here was a gentleman, a hard worker doing his job and someone comes along and. It's tragic."

Bill Brooks, 47, a dealer at The Orleans who lives near where the accident happened, also said speeding is a problem along that part of Buffalo.

"It's 45 here, I think it should be 35, but they're going 50 or 55," Brooks said. Brooks said maybe the road should be changed. "Do we really need a third lane? Maybe there should be two wider lanes and a shoulder," he said.

archive