Agencies to mount campaigns to curb vehicle deaths in valley

David Kihara

Monday, June 27, 2005 | 10:56 a.m.

To combat traffic deaths and injuries throughout the Las Vegas Valley, various agencies say they are stepping up efforts to stop errant drivers.

Clark County today will roll out a public awareness campaign aimed at curbing driving under the influence, running red lights and distracted driving. All of those are often associated with vehicle accidents, according to the county.

Stacey Welling, a county spokeswoman, said Friday that she could not go into detail of what the campaign will consist of. Agencies participating in the campaign include the Nevada Highway Patrol and Metro Police, but it is organized by the county.

On Friday, the North Las Vegas Police stepped up efforts to decrease pedestrian-related accidents by hitting the streets and citing drivers for failing to yield to pedestrians who were within crosswalks and had the right-of-way, said Lt. Paul Womack of the North Las Vegas Police traffic division.

At least five police vehicles were stationed on or around Las Vegas Boulevard North to stop errant drivers, he said. Officers, who were placed at Las Vegas Boulevard North and McCarran Street and Las Vegas Boulevard North and Bruce street cited 61 drivers for failures to yield pedestrians, said Tim Bedwell, a spokesman for the North Las Vegas Police Department.

So many drivers were disobeying the laws, writing the citations was "like shooting fish in a barrel," Bedwell said.

Each year, dozens of pedestrians are struck by vehicles and killed in the Las Vegas Valley. In 2003, 46 pedestrians in Clark County were killed in vehicle crashes, according to the Nevada Department of Public Safety's Office of Traffic Safety.

Chuck Abbot, the chief of the traffic safety office, said the 2003 numbers are the most recent statistics.

Womack said the failure to yield to pedestrians who have the right-of-way is an increasingly common problem in North Las Vegas and elsewhere in the valley. He said Friday's action was conducted in part to try to "condition" drivers against such violations.

The Nevada Office of Traffic Safety awarded the North Las Vegas Police a $20,000 grant to perform the crackdowns, Womack said. He said $4,000 of the grant will go toward officer training, while the remaining will go to police actions such as Friday's.

Three of the nine traffic fatalities in North Las Vegas involved a pedestrian victim in 2005, he said. In 2003, there were five pedestrians killed in vehicle accidents out of 12 traffic fatalities, he said.

On Thursday, a man who seriously injured a North Las Vegas City employee in a vehicle accident was sentenced to spend 10 months in prison for the accident. The man, Jesus Cervantes Cano, hit city worker Anthony Borruto with his car when he was driving to work. Borruto was standing behind his work truck and was sandwiched between the two vehicles in the accident. Borruto lost both his legs above the knee in the accident.

Cano allegedly took his eyes off the road to eat a sandwich. He was cited for failure to pay attention and driving without a license.

While some accidents involving pedestrians are the fault of the driver, many more are because of the pedestrian jaywalking, said Metro Police Detective Dennis Magill of the traffic division's fatal detail.

"The majority of pedestrian fatalities are the jaywalkers' fault, not the drivers'," he said.

Often times, pedestrians choose to cross streets in places where they shouldn't, he said. Other times, pedestrians attempt to cross the street at crosswalks when they don't have the right-of-way, he said.

The state's statistics appear to reflect this. Of the 46 pedestrian fatalities, 28 involved an individual improperly crossing the street and seven involved someone darting into the road, according to the statistics.

But Magill said pedestrians are not the only ones at fault.

"Our roads have become so congested that it is not a pedestrian-friendly city," he said. "And drivers need to pay better attention."