Editorial: Protect our pedestrians

Friday, March 18, 2005 | 3:47 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

March 19 - 20, 2005

The danger facing pedestrians in Southern Nevada was tragically brought to the forefront again last week. Three Cimarron-Memorial High School students and a 36-year-old woman were killed when a driver lost control of her sport utility vehicle and struck them on the sidewalk near Smoke Ranch Road and Rock Springs Drive in northwest Las Vegas. Over the past few years this newspaper has documented the frequency with which such auto-pedestrian fatalities take place. We have also reported and editorialized on the extremely light penalties that drivers receive after killing people.

In a lengthy story on this issue last June, we reported that 81 pedestrians and bicyclists had been struck and killed between then and January 2003. At the end of 2004, when the total number of pedestrians killed for the year stood at 54, a national report of the 50 most dangerous cities for pedestrians was published. Las Vegas ranked 11th. In our view, there is a correlation between pedestrian deaths and the notoriously light sentences handed to drivers who cause them.

In October 2003 a driver slowed to avoid hitting two 13-year-old girls crossing a Las Vegas street. This driver, however, was passed by another driver, who proceeded to hit and kill the girls. The penalty? Two misdemeanor tickets, one for failure to yield and another for driving with an expired license. In March 2004 another driver was passing cars that had slowed at an intersection and struck a teenager riding his bike in a crosswalk. The boy died. The driver was not initially charged, but after a public outcry, she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to reduce her speed for the conditions.

Those were just two among many cases that we have documented in which drivers who killed people received virtually no punishment. Several times last year we called for amending our traffic laws so that the courts could impose tougher sentences on drivers who cause needless deaths. The 2005 Legislature has a bill that takes a step in the right direction, albeit a small step.

The bill, introduced by Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, would create a new charge of "misdemeanor manslaughter," which police could use in citing drivers responsible for pedestrian deaths. Leslie contends that such a charge would "get the public's attention." We disagree. The charge carries no provision for jail time. The most it would do is increase a driver's insurance rates. We would rather see a bill with teeth, such as Senate Bill 141, which would increase the minimum jail sentences for people who leave the scene of fatal accidents.

We believe Leslie's bill should be amended to add jail time to fatal accidents caused by driver inattentiveness or recklessness. That would catch drivers' attention much more than a few more dollars tacked onto their insurance premiums.