Friday, June 4, 2004 | 7:10 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
June 5 - 6, 2004
On Nov. 3, 15-year-old Ashlee Bicknell called her mother from school.
It was a Monday, about 5:30 p.m., and the sun was starting to set. Ashlee had just gotten out of a rehearsal for the school play "Alice in Wonderland." She was the costume designer.
"I can't wait to see you," Ashlee told her mother, Cathy Chavez, over the phone. "There's something I have to tell you."
"OK," Chavez remembers replying. "Now don't miss the bus."
"I love you," Ashlee said, and hung up the phone to catch the city bus.
Chavez and Ashlee's younger sister, Licia, 12, left their small apartment to meet Ashlee. They walked up Wardelle Street to Bonanza Road. Normally they would cross Wardelle to be at the bus stop when Ashlee arrived, but they were late -- Licia had twisted her ankle in dance class and couldn't walk fast. By the time they got to the corner, Ashlee was already out of the bus.
As Ashlee waited to cross the street to where her mother and sister stood, Chavez could see her grinning, waiting to tell her mother her mysterious news.
Chavez couldn't see what happened next. Traffic blocked her view. But she heard a crash, skidding tires, honking horns. The traffic cleared, and she couldn't see Ashlee. "Where'd she go?" Chavez remembers thinking.
The events that followed are a blur in Chavez's memory. She remembers running over to her daughter's still form and screaming at a bystander who wanted to roll Ashlee over. She remembers asking Ashlee to blink her eyes and getting no response. She remembers the fire department arriving and someone telling her to shut up, that she was hysterical.
She remembers riding in her mother's car to University Medical Center and identifying her daughter's broken body.
Ashlee was one of 50 pedestrians -- including five children -- who died after being hit by vehicles in Clark County last year. As of Friday, this year's pedestrian death toll for the county was 18. Hundreds more pedestrians are injured in traffic each year -- 728 in 2002, the most recent year for which there is an audited total. In Metro's jurisdiction alone, police counted 697 pedestrians injured last year and more than 250 so far this year.
And bicyclists also fall victim to vehicles in the valley. Eight were struck and killed in Clark County last year, and through Friday five more had met the same fate this year. (See story, page 8D.)
Before Ashlee died, Chavez had never noticed how frequently valley motorists hit pedestrians and bicyclists -- and how seldom drivers are charged. But suddenly she saw it everywhere.
She remembered that two weeks before Ashlee died, two 13-year-old girls, Adriana Lauzon and Tabatha Speas, had been hit crossing the street. Both were hospitalized and later died.
Chavez had watched the news about that tragedy with Ashlee. Ashlee had cried over the reports about the two girls.
A few weeks after Ashlee's death, 18-year-old Jeralyn Balaoro, was killed by a hit-and-run driver in a crosswalk on Maryland Parkway in front of the Boulevard Mall.
In December, 10-year-old Jade Kilmer was run over by a tractor-trailer while rollerblading in North Las Vegas.
In February, a 26-year-old landscaper from Mexico, Carlos Rodriguez-Baruch, was killed as he worked along the side of Buffalo Drive.
Each time Chavez saw another dead pedestrian on the news, she saw Ashlee's mangled body in her mind's eye, and she felt her intense grief turn more and more to anger. Anger at herself for not somehow saving her daughter's life. Anger at the police, who didn't seem to her to be taking her daughter's death seriously. Anger at the driver who hit Ashlee, who was cited for not wearing his glasses but was not found to be at fault. Anger at the valley full of people who didn't seem to care that people were being killed by traffic throughout the area.
"It hit me before Ashlee, with the two 13-year-olds," Chavez said. "Then all of a sudden, it was Ashlee, then somebody else, then somebody else."
It took another child nearly being killed on the valley's streets -- and authorities' initial statements that the driver would not be charged -- to cause other residents to rise up in anger.
In March, 13-year-old Manuel Cazares was riding his bicycle to school on East Tropicana Avenue at Morris Street. Erin Young, 24, told police she was reaching for a ringing cell phone as she approached the intersection in her 2002 Toyota 4-Runner.
Young swerved into the left lane to pass the car in front of her, which had stopped for the boy pedaling through the crosswalk. Her SUV struck Manuel and left him with critical injuries.
Something about the story resonated with the public. People couldn't accept that police wouldn't charge the young woman in the shiny SUV whose main concerns apparently were her cell phone call and passing other cars. Newspapers and television stations received angry phone calls and letters.
"It was the straw that broke the camel's back," said Erin Breen, director of Safe Community Partnership and an outspoken traffic safety advocate. Breen's office was also inundated with calls from people who were outraged on behalf of Manuel.
"People finally snapped and said, 'No, this is enough, this is crazy,' " Breen said. The district attorney charged Young with a misdemeanor, and she chose to pay $1,220 in restitution rather than a fine.
One resident galvanized by stories such as Manuel's was Cindy Fox, who owns a marketing firm and whose son attends Sig Rogich Middle School in Summerlin. She is one of several local parents who have been spurred into action by recent incidents involving children and want to start activist groups at their schools or in their neighborhoods.
"There isn't a morning where there isn't a close call" at the middle school, which doesn't have crossing guards, Fox said. She and other parents want to get something done before more children are hurt. Fox's first goal is to get U-turns prohibited in school zones.
Meanwhile, the deaths on and along the streets continued.
On May 3, 4-year-old Angel Avendano was killed when an allegedly drunken driver smashed into the bus shelter where the boy sat on his mother's lap.
Two days later, 8-year-old Justyne Steffee was bicycling home from a friend's house in North Las Vegas when she was hit by driver who police allege was high on drugs and speeding. Justyne died two weeks later in the hospital.
Those children and the hundreds of other people struck and killed by vehicles in the valley in recent years had the misfortune of living in a place where the deck is stacked against anyone trying to get around town without a car. In a city known for gambling, just crossing the street may be the riskiest wager of all.
"Las Vegas is a completely hostile environment for pedestrians," Breen said. "We're killing far too many people."
Nevada had the fifth-worst pedestrian death rate among the states in 2002, the last year for which national statistics are available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administation. Since 1994, Nevada annually has been one of the nation's 10 deadliest states for pedestrians, per capita. In 1999, when 67 pedestrians died in Nevada, the state had the highest pedestrian death rate per capita in the nation.
The pedestrian fatality rate in Nevada -- the number of pedestrians who died out of every 100,000 residents -- was 2.39 in 2002. That was 43 percent above the national rate of 1.67.
And the overwhelming majority of Nevada's pedestrian deaths occur in Clark County, which is home to 71 percent of the state's population, according to estimates by the state demographer. Forty-one of the state's 52 pedestrian deaths in 2002, or 79 percent, were in Clark County. That amounted to a per-capita pedestrian traffic death rate of 2.65 in Clark County.
Granted, that rate doesn't take into account the large number of tourists who are not counted as residents. On an average weekend day 200,000 to 250,000 tourists are in the Las Vegas Valley.
But people who believe most pedestrians killed in traffic are tourists are wrong, said Bruce Mackey, bicycle and pedestrian safety officer for the state Office of Traffic Safety. Most drivers who kill pedestrians aren't tourists either, he said.
Mackey studied police records and found that in 1999 more than 80 percent of the pedestrians killed in Clark County were residents, and more than 80 percent of the drivers involved had Clark County addresses on their driver's licenses.
Last year at least 39, or 78 percent, of the 50 pedestrians who were killed by traffic in Clark County were area residents, according to a Sun analysis. Another 8 percent were from out of town, and 14 percent did not have a known address, according to the coroner's office.
Of the drivers connected to those deaths, at least 33, or 66 percent, were county residents, the Sun analysis found. Five drivers were from out of town, although one was from Pahrump, and the information for 12 others was unavailable. Six of those were hit-and-run drivers.
"We're not talking about a tourist problem," Breen said. "This is Las Vegans killing Las Vegans."
Another common misconception is that alcohol is to blame in most of the cases. It is a major contributing factor, authorities agree.
But, surprisingly, the number of pedestrians killed in Clark County in 2002 who had been drinking or were under the influence of drugs -- 30 percent -- was below the national rate of 38 percent.
Only 8 percent of the drivers who struck and killed pedestrians were found to have alcohol or drugs in their systems, according to police statistics compiled by the Transportation Research Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Why, then, do so many people get hit by vehicles in the Las Vegas Valley? Experts say it is a combination of factors that makes the area a potential death trap for pedestrians, from the free-for-all nature of the area's traffic to the virtual speedways of its streets. In addition, some point to laws that go easy on drivers and to police who tend to blame the victims, creating a culture of impunity for motorists.
Drivers, "in their air-conditioned luxury SUVs with one person in them," consider the pedestrian to be "an inconvenience to them," Breen said.
"No one pays attention until someone dies," she added.
Breen has become the valley's loudest voice on behalf of pedestrians. Her 8-year-old Safe Community Partnership is part of the Transportation Research Center and operates on state and federal grant money.
She points to the design of the valley's streets as one of the key issues. Traffic engineers, safety officials and police all agree that the long, flat, multilane arterial streets that make up the valley's road grid put pedestrians at a severe disadvantage. Motorists can cruise along for miles without interruption, never expecting a bend in the road -- never mind a person on foot -- to obstruct their path.
Speeding is epidemic in the area, police say, partly because the streets allow and encourage it. Since the streets are so wide, they are difficult to cross, and since intersections are often spaced at one-mile intervals it is inconvenient for pedestrians to cross them in marked crosswalks.
There used to be a crosswalk where Ashlee died, but the city had let it fade. Bonanza Road, a typical valley arterial, has seven lanes there, and the speed limit is 35 mph.
Las Vegas let the crosswalk fade because it wanted to encourage pedestrians to cross Bonanza at 28th Street, 610 feet away, where it had recently put in a traffic signal, said O.C. White, traffic engineer for Las Vegas.
"We found a spot (at 28th) that we thought was better, and we put a signal there to make it even safer" to cross Bonanza, White said. "Where the girl got hit, there's a convenience store and housing. We knew people were still going to cross there. It's still considered a legal crosswalk, but the safest place available is at the signal light."
The crosswalk at Wardelle was not repainted, and today its ghostly outlines are barely visible. But according to state law, a crosswalk exists at any intersection of through streets, whether there are lines painted on the ground or not.
No estimate of the driver's speed is given in the police report. Ashlee's mother believes the truck was speeding because "everybody speeds down that street," and because of the extent of Ashlee's injuries -- two broken legs, a broken hip, a lacerated liver and severe chest and head injuries. She says the driver didn't even begin to brake until after the collision occurred.
According to police, the vehicle came to a stop 272 feet from the intersection.
The pickup truck that killed Ashlee was driven by 27-year-old Geoffrey DuFrene of Las Vegas.
The police report states that Ashlee was "crossing ... within an unmarked crosswalk." According to the law, vehicles must yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. But on the form police use to evaluate accidents, on the page marked "Non-Motorist Information Sheet" that bears Ashlee's name, a box is checked: "Improper Crossing."
Metro Detective Oscar Chavez, who is not related to Cathy Chavez, writes in the report that he told a coroner's investigator at 8:20 p.m., less than three hours after the collision, that "it appeared to be pedestrian error, and there would be no prosecution."
In the report, Oscar Chavez records statements from six witnesses, including Ashlee's mother and sister. The detective also took statements from a public works technician and DuFrene.
One witness told the detective that Ashlee "ran into the roadway." But another said the truck "came speeding out of nowhere," and two others said the truck did not slow for her.
At the end of the report, the detective concludes that the primary cause of the accident was that Ashlee had not been in a crosswalk when she tried to cross the street.
The report continues: "Although not a contributing factor, Geoffrey DuFrene had violated his Nevada driver's license restriction of corrective lenses. DuFrene was issued a misdemeanor citation for this offense."
The detective cites a statute, 484.327-3, that reads: "Between adjacent intersections at which official traffic-control devices are in operation pedestrians shall not cross at any place except in a marked crosswalk."
Other experts, however, say this statute does not apply to intersections without traffic lights.
The detective did not return repeated phone calls to explain his interpretation.
His report states that DuFrene's state was "apparently normal" and he was not tested for drugs or alcohol.
To Cathy Chavez, too many aspects of Ashlee's case just don't add up, and she doesn't understand how Ashlee could be blamed and not DuFrene. But most of the time, area pedestrians are blamed for their own deaths. In 40 of the 50 such deaths last year, or 80 percent, police said the pedestrian's actions were the main cause of the crash.
Cathy Chavez thought the driver who hit Ashlee should have received more scrutiny from the police for intentionally getting into his vehicle without the corrective lenses his license required.
"He was supposed to be wearing corrective lenses, but he wasn't," she said. "To me, that's premeditated. You know you're putting yourself in jeopardy and maybe others."
Sgt. Frank Weigand of Metro's Fatal Accident Investigation Division said it is an unfortunate fact that most pedestrian fatalities occur when a pedestrian crosses the street improperly.
"The typical accident occurs midblock where there is no crosswalk," Weigand said. "People don't want to walk down to the intersection. Let's face it, we have long distances between crosswalks."
Pedestrians shouldn't cross anywhere but at marked crosswalks at intersections "because, unfortunately, the driver always wins. Unfortunately, the great majority of accidents are (caused by) pedestrian error; it's not the driver's fault," Weigand said.
In Nevada from 1994 to 2002, according to federal statistics, only 20 percent of pedestrian fatalities occurred in intersections, in line with the national rate of 21 percent. From 1997 to 2002, just 24 percent of drivers involved in crashes that killed nonmotorists in Nevada were cited with something -- be it a misdemeanor such as speeding, or a felony such as hit-and-run or driving under the influence. Nationally the rate is even lower, 20 percent.
Police say that usually it is the walkers and bicyclists who misbehave. They refuse to go down to the corner and cross at the signal the way they should. They dart in front of vehicles too quickly for the driver to brake or swerve. They stumble into the road drunk late at night, sometimes falling down before they are run over.
There is no denying that this is sometimes the case. For example, Harry Dugard, 66, had been drinking when he tried to cross Decatur Boulevard north of Pennwood Avenue around 10 p.m. on March 4, 2003. His daughter, Tina, said the family does not blame the driver whose car struck and killed Dugard, apparently inadvertently.
But advocates say police make assumptions that favor the driver. "There are a lot of myths about what pedestrians are doing," said Sue Newberry, a traffic consultant in Carson City who is on the board of America Walks, a national group that advocates for pedestrians.
For example, she said, a pedestrian might cross in the crosswalk, then cut diagonally toward the curb for the last few feet, "and the pedestrian is ruled to be out of the crosswalk."
Newberry and Breen point out that midblock crossings are legal in many places. They say that jaywalking itself is not a crime as long as the pedestrian does not get in the way of a vehicle.
"It is not against Nevada law to cross the street wherever you damn well please, just as long as you don't stop a car," Breen said.
Few pedestrians throw themselves suicidally in front of traffic; rather, they make judgments about whether they can make it across the street, she said.
"If I calculate that I have time to cross the street, at the speed limit, I do; at twice the speed limit, I don't," Breen said. "So who's wrong? The pedestrian or the speeding driver? Every cop is going to tell me it's my fault for stepping off the curb."
Police disagree with Breen's interpretation of the law. They say a pedestrian crossing midblock is always doing something illegal.
In fact, the law states that drivers must exercise "due care" and "proper caution" to avoid hitting pedestrians. The law appears to require pedestrians to use marked crosswalks only when crossing between intersections with stoplights that have no other streets in between, and to yield to drivers at all other times.
As for the claim that police define crosswalks too narrowly, police say investigators always make judgments without prejudice, based on physical evidence and eyewitness statements. However, police acknowledge that in the case of a speeding driver and a jaywalking pedestrian or a bicyclist riding in a crosswalk -- that is, in cases where both parties are technically at fault -- neither side would typically be charged. Police said they see the fault on each side as canceling each other out.
In the Manuel Cazares case, for example, authorities initially said they couldn't cite the driver without citing the injured boy. And they didn't want to give a ticket to a 13-year-old who was fighting for his life in a hospital, they said.
Advocates for pedestrians and bicyclists point to this approach as an example of how police ultimately wind up favoring motorists with a "tie goes to the driver" mentality.
Capt. Vincent Cannito of Metro's Transportation Safety Bureau said that isn't the case.
"All we can do is base our actions on facts," he said. "That's all we have to go on. If you're not in the defined crosswalk, you're going to bear some of the responsibility."
Weigand said: "Typically, what happens is that a pedestrian will literally dart out in front of a car. You're driving along, going the speed limit, and someone darts out from the median."
That's the kind of statement that enrages Breen. She points out that police will not charge a driver with speeding based on physical evidence such as skid marks, but they do not hesitate to conclude that a pedestrian was at fault in the absence of witnesses. And when a pedestrian dies, he never gets to tell his side of the story about what happened.
"How do they know the pedestrian was at fault?" Breen said. "Every time (a pedestrian is killed), the first thing the officer says on the evening news is, 'We think it's the pedestrian's fault."'
On May 11, a hit-and-run driver struck and killed a 44-year-old Las Vegas woman outside a crosswalk on Las Vegas Boulevard. Metro Detective Bill Redfairn told the Sun that even though there were no witnesses and the driver fled the scene, police had concluded that pedestrian error caused the crash.
"The driver was not at fault and should have just stopped the vehicle," Redfairn said. "Even if the driver was found to be drunk, they'd only face a misdemeanor DUI. Now they're facing a felony hit-and-run."
It is true that in Nevada, drivers involved in fatal crashes cannot be charged with more than a misdemeanor -- for DUI, running a red light or not wearing glasses -- unless they are found to be solely at fault. If a drunken driver who is otherwise obeying traffic laws kills a pedestrian who is jaywalking, the offense is a misdemeanor.
Even when the driver is found to be at fault, as long as he is not intoxicated in most cases he can only be cited for the traffic offense he committed. Donna Rohr, whose car struck two landscapers and killed one in February, received a speeding ticket, just as she would have if she had been caught speeding before anyone was hurt.
Breen and several lawmakers, along with a group of activists in Reno, want to stiffen the penalties for drivers who are at fault in fatal crashes, whether it is a pedestrian, a cyclist or another vehicle occupant who dies. Previous attempts to change the law failed, but proponents think their effort finally has momentum. (See story, page 8D.)
Ashlee's family is adamant about the need for tougher laws. "Driving a car is the same as carrying a gun. It's a weapon," said Cathy Jackson, Ashlee's grandmother. "A 4,000-pound car can carry out a lot of destruction.
"Everyone has to be accountable. You're accountable for not taking proper care of your children, but not for killing someone when you're driving your car? Something's wrong here. It needs to be fixed."
Protecting pedestrians is "going to take a change in the law that says: This is unacceptable behavior," Breen said. "Then, it's going to take a lot of enforcement and public awareness."
As for the reasons Ashlee died and how her case should have been handled, lawyers can argue over whether she shouldn't have been crossing there or whether the driver of the pickup should have been wearing his glasses. And they will.
But underlying the immediate circumstances, countless reasons contributed to Ashlee's death -- countless factors that make anyone who crosses the street in Las Vegas more likely to be killed than in many other cities.
There is the way Las Vegas is built: the long, wide, straight streets -- built for speed, not for crossing.
And there is a police force stretched too thin to make sure drivers and walkers alike follow the rules. Metro officials frequently complain that they need more officers. The valley has about 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents, far below the national average of 2.5 -- and that's not counting the many tourists who take up much of the police's time.
"People are jaywalking and speeding and not stopping. That's a crime," White said. "But can Metro put 100 people out there when there are so many other, more violent crimes going on? It's a tough balancing act."
And there are more intangible factors: The "what happens here, stays here" mentality that leads many of us to behave as if there were no such thing as consequences; the community of transients who don't know their neighbors or feel invested in their hometown; the reckless lifestyle and accessibility of drink and drugs in a place known as "Sin City."
The effect of some of these factors can be proved, and some can only be speculated about. But there is no doubt about what they add up to: people dying.
"It's the scariest thing in the world," Cathy Chavez said. "I'm scared to death to drive, I'm scared to death to walk. It's horrible."
Licia, Ashlee's sister, sat at her mother's feet playing with one of the family's dogs. "The other day I was crossing the street and this truck stopped an inch away from me," she said. "It didn't look like it was going to turn," so she started to cross. That's when the truck came bearing down.
"I cried. I'm scared," Licia said. "I watch everywhere."
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