Letter: Legislation needed to protect pedestrians

Sunday, April 1, 2007 | 7:33 a.m.

Regarding recent efforts to reduce jaywalking in the city, I would like to also encourage city leaders to seek to redress the many problems pedestrians face when they walk.

Many streets in this city do not have crosswalks and they are poorly illuminated/advertised. Drivers often do not yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. Stop lights are few and far between and often have inordinately long wait times.

Crossing a street is always a very risky adventure for walkers because many drivers just don't stop at stop signs, don't look out for pedestrians, and rudely ease out into traffic by blocking the crosswalk, forcing pedestrians to walk out of the crosswalk or wait for the next driver behind them to do the same.

I have walked with my three small children in a crosswalk almost to be nearly run over by a teenage driver in a pickup truck who couldn't wait five to 10 seconds to let me pass with my children. As one who has lived in a number of major cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and New York City), I have never had a more difficult time walking (which I enjoy immensely) than in Las Vegas.

In an era of unhealthy overdependence on gas-guzzling vehicles for transportation, we need to start encouraging people to walk more by enacting legislation that protects pedestrians and enacts heavy penalties on drivers who disregard the law and callously use their vehicles as weapons.

Michael Pravica, Henderson