Nevada road travel as deadly as ever

Beth Slovic

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 | 10:49 a.m.

Traveling Nevada's roads is shaping up to be almost as deadly this year as it was last year, according to a report Tuesday from the Nevada Department of Public Safety's Office of Traffic Safety.

But in Clark County, where explosive growth has led to more motorists hitting the road, the rate of traffic fatalities appears to have evened out, at least for the time being.

In the first six months of this year, 186 people died in traffic accidents statewide compared to 185 residents during the same period last year, the report from the public safety department said.

Statewide, the situation on Nevada's roads is not getting any better, Chuck Abbott, the state department of public safety chief, said in a release detailing the report.

However, the opposite may be true in Clark County where 119 people died during the six-month period in 2003 and the same number of people died in the same period in 2004.

Considering the thousands of new residents moving to Clark County every month, the rate of fatalities here may be going down, Erin Breen, the director of the Safe Community Partnership Program at the Transportation Research Center of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said.

"We're even, which is still not great," said Breen. "But we had a terrible year last year. We didn't know if last year's big increase in fatalities was a fluke or a trend."

The statistics released Tuesday indicated to Breen that last year's spike may not have been the beginning of a grim trend in the county.

Factoring in the new drivers on the road, the rate of fatal traffic accidents in Clark County should go down, she predicted.

Motorcyclists, however, may not be so lucky. They appear to be at an even greater risk than people in vehicles for death and injury on Nevada's road, according to the report.

While the number of deaths from car crashes went down slightly from 135 to 127, the number of motorcycle fatalities increased from 11 to 20, more than making up for the other decrease, the report said.

Mirroring the statewide trend, the number of deaths related to motorcycle accidents in Clark County has also increased. It jumped from eight in 2003 to 13 in 2004 for the period between Jan. 1 and July 13, according to an analysis by the Nevada Department of Transportation. Meanwhile, Metro Police continue targeting specific intersections they think pose a high risk for traffic accidents.

At these locations, which are put on the Internet ahead of time, officers set up where they hope to increase ticketing and the number of arrests they make for moving violations.

Capt. Vincent Cannito of the Metro's Transportation Safety Bureau, said he was optimistic that aggressive enforcement of traffic rules would result in the number of traffic accidents and deaths decreasing.

Police officers would never be able to predict with certainty where a fatal accident would occur, he said. But they can target areas where a high number of traffic accidents have happened in the past.

With limited resources and relatively few officers patrolling the streets, stepped-up enforcement can't go on indefinitely, Cannito said. Only 91 patrol officers on motorcycles were assigned to participate in the initiative, he said.

"It's all temporary in its effect; nothing lasts forever," Cannito said. "But we are trying to get people to slow down."

Throughout July, officers will patrol areas of Jones Boulevard in the evening and Sahara Avenue during the day. They'll work in teams to identify and pull over drivers who break the law.

"If we're successful at what we do, we should see a decrease in citations and then traffic accidents." Cannito said.