Safety of traffic lights debated after fatal crash

Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004 | 8:46 a.m.

New flashing warning lights are showing promise in cutting the number of people running stop signs at an intersection that gained notoriety after the death of a young girl two months ago, Clark County officials reported Tuesday.

John Toth, Public Works engineer, told the County Commission that his department installed the flashing warnings Nov. 2 at the intersection of Desert Inn Road and Hualapai Way, where stop signs failed to prevent a collision that killed 7-year-old Debbie Blinder in September.

The driver was issued a ticket for failing to stop, but the Blinder family and neighbors have sharply criticized the county for failing to install a full traffic-control lights at the intersection.

Public Works officials have said the need to design and put the lights out to bid, along with funding limitations, means a delay of months before the lights go up.

The officials, including Toth and Public Works Director Marty Manning, also have pointed out that fatal accidents regularly occur at intersections controlled by traffic lights. The flashing warnings of a stop sign, however, were designed as an intermediary, stopgap measure between stop signs and traffic lights.

Toth said his department monitored the efficacy of the lights over a 24-hour period. The early results indicated success, he suggested.

Films showed that before the warning lights went in, 204 drivers blew through the stop signs -- almost 1 percent of the 23,600 people who went through the intersection. Another 2,312 drivers rolled through the intersection without coming to a complete stop, almost 10 percent of the total.

Following the installation of the lights, only seven drivers went through the intersection without slowing significantly, and 255 drivers rolled through, Toth reported.

He warned that the results, though impressive, may not be permanent.

"It may be too early to determine what the change will be in long-range behavior," Toth said. "I think that you'll find that initially there's a honeymoon period, then a gradual decline in effect until we reach a stabilization point."

At less than $2,000 for each of the solar-powered warning lights, the cost of outfitting one intersection is usually $10,000 or less -- far cheaper than the cost of installing traffic lights, which can cost $250,000.

Toth told the commission that Public Works is developing new standards for when and where to install the flashing warnings. The factors that would be considered include accident rates, traffic volumes and the number of lanes entering the intersection.

The accident rate would likely be the most significant factor in evaluating the placement of the warning lights, Toth said.

Toth said Public Works and the other roadway agencies from the cities met through the Regional Transportation Commission, the traffic-planning organization for Southern Nevada, to discuss ways to make the installation of traffic signals faster.

Fees for developers, already a fact of life for homebuilders and others in Clark County, could go up, Toth said. Also, the state Transportation Department has control over state roads and can delay or even kill installation of a traffic light or other traffic-control device.

Toth said a change in state law could eliminate the Transportaton Department's oversight role. He added that creating a "revolving fund" at the Regional Transportation Commission could help the county and the cities receive RTC money for traffic lights without having to wait for the agencies annual appropriation, which comes in September.

But the toughest test, he said, could be in altering human behavior. Toth said discussion thus far has produced several recommendations: doing television programs on public access cable or installing cameras to snap photos of the license plates of drivers who fail to stop for signs or traffic lights.

The camera option also would take a change in state law, which now specifically forbids the use of the devices to catch scofflaws, he said.

Commissioner Lynette Boggs-McDonald commiserated with the county Public Works staff.

"Metro (Police) can only do so much. The traffic engineers can only do so much," she said. "It comes down to human behavior and obeying the law."

Boggs-McDonald and Commission Chairman Chip Maxfield said they would support an effort to change the state laws, an issue that could come back before the commission for a formal bill-draft request.

Following the presentation by Public Works and comments by the commissioners, the woman whose daughter died after the collision at Desert Inn and Hualapai once again criticized the county for not moving faster to add traffic controls at the intersection.

"Did someone have to die or be injured for something to be done?" asked a tearful Dawn Blinder. She noted that unlike traffic lights, which can take months to be designed, put out to bid and installed, the flashing warnings can go up in a matter of four or five weeks.

"Could they have saved my daughter's life? Possibly. Probably... Our grief is still overwhelming. Our sorrow intense. The intersection should have had something sooner than this."

Niel Rohleder, traffic engineering manager for the Regional Transportation Commission, agreed with Clark County Public Works officials that traffic lights, as opposed to stop signs, are not necessarily safer.

"That's kind of one of those misleading things," Rohleder said. "Numerous studies have shown that moving from a stop sign to a traffic light actually increases the number of accidents."

He said that while the number of traffic accidents usually increases, the severity of accidents generally decrease when lights replace stop signs -- though not always.

"It is one solution in our toolbox," Rohleder said.

Unincorporated Clark County is not alone when it comes to having difficulty finding the money and ways to expedite getting traffic lights, he said.

"It could take two years or more," Rholeder said. "It is pretty much standard throughout the entities," including at Las Vegas City Hall, from which Rohleder transferred earlier this year.

"They have similar processes," he said. "We're mandated by federal rules and state law to go through processes."

Most of the funding for such traffic control elements comes through the RTC, he said. Requiring developers to pay for the devices or putting in general fund money can expedite the process, but not by a lot, he said.

"There are a lot of hidden things there that need to be addressed before turning these (traffic lights) on," Rohleder said, including the design process, awarding a bid to a contractor and even providing the power needed to keep the light on.

Toth told the commission that the process for installing a traffic light at Desert Inn and Hualapai is moving forward -- although still not fast enough for residents of the area.

In a bid package opened Monday, just one contractor put in a bid on installing a traffic light at the intersection, Toth said. Public Works staff will need to evaluate whether to accept the bid, because is was 38 percent higher than the department's estimate of the cost.

If the bid is accepted, the company would have 90 days to install the traffic light, he said.