Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2005 | 9:41 a.m.
Dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and Detroit Lions baseball hat, North Las Vegas Police Sgt. Randy Carter went undercover Tuesday -- as a pedestrian.
Carter was at the center of a traffic law enforcement operation on Lake Mead Boulevard between Tonopah Drive and Martin Luther King Boulevard. His goal was to catch unsuspecting motorists who didn't yield to pedestrians in crosswalks.
"This is cake," Carter said, adding that so many drivers didn't yield to him while he walked through the crosswalk that the police couldn't handle the volume of drivers. They cracked down only on the most blatant offenders.
After motorists drove through the crosswalk despite Carter being in it, he signaled several motorcycle officers to pull them over and issue each driver a $190 ticket for failing to yield to a pedestrian.
Under state law, pedestrians "own" the crosswalk, and vehicles in both traffic directions must not enter it while someone is walking in it, Carter said.
Tuesday's sting operation is part of a three-month project by the North Las Vegas Police to cite drivers who don't yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. The ultimate objective of the project is to inform drivers of the rights of pedestrians and to deter motorists from driving through occupied crosswalks.
Since the program began in June, North Las Vegas Police have issued 263 citations to drivers for failing to yield to pedestrians at various spots throughout the city, including along Lake Mead Boulevard at Comstock Drive and Las Vegas Boulevard North and Bruce Street, said North Las Vegas Sgt. Dan Ewing, Traffic Bureau supervisor.
But the department has also issued almost 200 citations to people for other traffic violations at the stops, he said. The citations were for a variety of violations, including driving without a seat belt or driving without proof of insurance, he said.
Residents in the area applauded the program, saying that the drivers along Lake Mead often drove straight through the crosswalk, even when children from the nearby school were walking through it.
"They stop only when there is a cop there," said Tony Hayes, 48, who lives nearby. "People just don't care."
Another resident, Joey Chadwick, 26, also applauded the program.
"A lot of cars go too fast for the kids (crossing the street)," he said. "Some of them don't even pay attention."
But Carter conceded that the project, while effective at changing drivers' behavior in the short-term by hitting their pocketbooks, may not prevent motorists from running through occupied crosswalks in the long-term.
"After a while (the memory of paying a fine) wears off and they are back" to driving through crosswalks, he said.
Ewing said it is too soon to judge the effectiveness of the program, which is operated from a $20,000 state grant set to expire in September. The program should not end, Ewing said.
"The numbers (of pedestrian fatalities) aren't going down, so we'd like the program to continue. We'd like to fund it on a continual basis because it (the failure to obey traffic laws designed to protect pedestrians) is bad," he said.
From Jan. 1, 2005, to the present, one person was killed in a pedestrian accident involving a vehicle in North Las Vegas, according to the North Las Vegas Police. Two pedestrians were killed in 2004 and seven were killed in 2003, according to the police.
A total of seven people died in traffic from Jan. 1, 2005 to present in North Las Vegas, police reported. Nine people were killed in traffic in 2004 and 12 in 2003, police reported.
Metro Police, however, report many more pedestrian-related fatalities.
From Jan. 1, 2005 to present, 23 pedestrians have been killed in traffic fatalities, Metro stated. There have been a total of 101 traffic fatalities in 2005 so far, Metro reported.
In 2004, 39 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents out of a total of 145 traffic-related fatalities, Metro stated.
Det. Dennis Magill of Metro's fatal traffic detail, said that Metro conducted similar "decoy" pedestrian safety stops in the past and accesses various grant funds from the state for drunk driver prevention, pedestrian safety and other projects. He was unaware how much grant money Metro was using.
He said, however, that Metro's enforcement squads are often so busy with vehicle collisions and wrecks that they often can't concentrate solely on pedestrian-related programs.
Metro does, however, conduct routine traffic enforcement programs where an officer will park at a busy intersection such as at Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway or at Bonanza Road and Eastern Avenue and cite motorists for failing to yield to pedestrians and other moving violations, he said.
But while drivers are often at fault, he said pedestrians often don't cross streets in crosswalks and choose instead to dash across busy streets at inappropriate areas.
"Yes -- drivers don't yield to pedestrians. But pedestrians often don't do what they are supposed to do," he said.
Henderson Police stated that pedestrian traffic deaths have not been a major issue in that city. Todd Rasmussen, spokesman for the Henderson Police said there were no traffic-related pedestrian fatalities this year.
He said the department does not participate in any programs targeting pedestrians like the one in North Las Vegas, but it conducts selective enforcement of motorists in high collision intersections such as at Green Valley Parkway and Warm Springs Road to reduce the numbers of collisions.
Although the North Las Vegas police, pedestrians and some area residents like the North Las Vegas program, there was predictably strong opposition from one group: The drivers cited by police.
One woman, who refused to give her name, was stopped by police on Tuesday in her red Mercury, and police gave her a $190 ticket for failing to yield to a pedestrian and an additional $1,130 ticket for not having proof of insurance.
"This is a little bit of entrapment," she complained.
Police said she apparently doesn't understand the definition of entrapment.
The woman said that she is a teacher at K.R. Booker Elementary school and is well aware of the laws about crosswalks. She said she didn't see a need to make a full stop because Carter was not near her car when she went through the intersection.
She also said that the school was not in session at the time, so there was little possibility for a child to be in the crosswalk.
"There wasn't a need to stop," she said.
Another motorist who received a $190 citation on Tuesday, Charles Finley, also called the police tactic unfair.
"It seems like a set-up," Finley said while sitting in his Cadillac Sedan deVille.
Some drivers figured the operation was just another way for the city to make money.
The majority of traffic fines collected go to North Las Vegas' general funds, and some go toward special funds, said Kay Godbey, assistant finance director for the city.
She said the total expenditures for the general fund for North Las Vegas in fiscal year 2006 is $161.4 million and the total revenues are $160.1 million. Most of the revenues -- 32 percent -- come from consolidated taxes, she said. Only 4 percent, or about $6.4 million, come from court fees and fines, she said.
Back on Lake Mead Boulevard, Carter was dodging traffic. Very few vehicles stopped to allow Carter to walk across the street, and several times the motorists drove within a two feet of him.
At one point, as he was in the center of the crosswalk, more than 20 cars went through the crosswalk, trapping him between westbound and eastbound traffic.
"Nobody stopped on that one," he said once he made it safely to the sidewalk.
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