‘Dumb Driver Law’ gets little support from county officials

Jen Lawson

Friday, Jan. 14, 2005 | 10:47 a.m.

The billboard showed a blue sport utility vehicle halfway submerged in rushing brown water next to the message "BADIDEA" emblazoned on a faux personalized Nevada license plate.

The Clark County Regional Flood Control District, which paid for the advertising campaign aimed at preventing people from driving through flooded streets, seem to be getting the message across, according to the results of the district's flood awareness survey released Wednesday.

But still, fire and rescue officials say, drivers have to be assisted or rescued nearly every time it rains in Southern Nevada.

On Tuesday alone, Clark County fire and rescue personnel helped 12 drivers make their way out of the water and conducted one swift water rescue. And television news crews broadcast footage of drivers going around barricades, driving through water up over wheel wells of vehicles and, predictably, getting their cars stuck.

"Part of the problem is that what may appear dangerous to someone might not appear dangerous to someone else, and it's not easy to tell," Clark County Fire Department spokesman Bob Leinbach said.

However, officials said, there seems to be little interest in breathing new life into the "Dumb Driver Law," an idea that was tossed around in 2001 but ultimately abandoned.

Proposed by Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, it was to be modeled after Arizona's "Stupid Motorist Law," which allows authorities to levy a $2,000 fine against drivers who go around barricades at washes and charge the drivers for the cost of the rescue and, if necessary, for removing the stranded vehicle.

"It never went anywhere," Woodbury recalled. "There was a feeling that it would be difficult to collect (the fines), and we couldn't get much interest in it from law enforcement and the Legislature."

And it's already a misdemeanor for drivers to drive past a road barricade in a flooded area, Woodbury noted.

Sgt. Chris Jones, Metro spokesman, said people who ignore the barricades could be subjecting themselves to tickets for driving on a closed street, removing a police barricade or both.

There were also questions about how agencies would receive the compensation, Betty Hollister, Flood Control District spokeswoman, said. Sometimes police as well as fire department personnel work together on rescues, so it would have to be divided up somehow.

The bottom line, Hollister said, is that rescuing people is the emergency responder's mission.

But Sgt. Travis Anglin of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department has a different take.

"People are correct that it is our job to rescue people, but it's at the risk of the deputies' or firefighters' lives," he said. "Swift water rescues are extremely dangerous."

Anglin said his state's "Stupid Motorist Law," passed in 1995, clearly acts as a deterrent, but its success rate is hard to gauge because they have no way of telling how many people would have tried to drive in flooded areas if the law didn't exist.

Media coverage of rescues -- where drivers are publicly labeled stupid and are ridiculed -- is also thought to deter motorists from making the wrong choice when faced with floodwaters, officials said.

Like in Southern Nevada, the same places flood when it rains in Arizona, and when attention is paid to rescues people remember to stay away from those areas the next time it rains, Anglin said.

Instead of pushing for the "Dumb Driver Law," the Clark County Regional Flood Control District decided to focus on public awareness campaigns, which have included billboards, oversized postcards sent to new residents, going to schools and asking children to tell their parents not to drive in flooded areas, newspaper and radio advertisements and television commercials.

Citizens seem to be soaking up the message, but that doesn't necessarily mean they won't take their chances and try to drive through floodwaters.

As they have every year since 1999, flood control officials conducted a survey of 501 Clark County residents in October on their flood awareness to see if their message was being heard.

Seventy-eight percent of those who took the survey said they were aware that flash flooding was a danger in Clark County, an improvement from 2003, when 55 percent said they knew of the danger.

"That (13 percentage point) increase is incredibly significant," Hollister said. "Our communications effort has really helped."

Newcomers are the most unfamiliar with the flooding problem, and tourists know even less about it.

"Some dramatic situations occur near the Imperial Palace," Leinbach said. The rear of the Strip hotel often floods when it rains, taking visitors by surprise, especially ones who park in the flood zone.

"They see signs that say 'no parking, flood zone,' and they say, 'Is that a joke?' " he said.

Leinbach agreed with Anglin, the Arizona sheriff's sergeant, saying firefighters "are there to help people ... but there are situations that they would rather not be involved in as a result of people not being careful."

Tim Szymanski, spokesman for Las Vegas Fire & Rescue, said when people are determined to get somewhere nothing seems to be able to stop them.

"The ones that really get to you are the ones who give you hand gestures and yell obscenities at you when you are directing traffic" in blocked-off flooded areas, he said.

"We're only out there because we're trying to protect those people from getting hurt or killed."