Editorial: Highway safety

Monday, July 2, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

A shortage of highway patrol troopers is leaving the nation's highways open for speeders and reckless drivers.

USA Today on Tuesday reported that several states are struggling to field enough officers to adequately patrol the nation's highways.

Nevada knows the story well. For years there has been a shortage of troopers as the Nevada Highway Patrol, like other agencies, has been unable to keep up with growth. The state has authorized 138 troopers, which includes commanders, sergeants and patrol officers, to cover all of Clark County and parts of Nye and Lincoln counties. The patrol now has 16 vacancies in Southern Nevada.

That doesn't leave many troopers on the roads, especially as their workload keeps increasing. The Highway Patrol's staffing should be a real concern for drivers in the Las Vegas Valley, where the difficulty of driving on a highway system that has not kept up with the pace of growth is exacerbated by reckless, drunken and drugged drivers.

Troopers handled 15,400 crashes in 2006 in Southern Nevada, an 18 percent increase over 2005. For the first five months of 2007, crashes are up 10 percent over the same period in 2006 and crashes involving a suspected DUI are up 11 percent.

The Highway Patrol has worked hard to try to crack down on dangerous driving by saturating an area for a short period to send a message to drivers, but the reality is that without more officers on the road, drivers' behavior will not change.

The good news is the Legislature this year approved more officers for the Highway Patrol, with 45 expected to come to Southern Nevada over the next two years. That is a welcome start but certainly not enough. Having an adequate number of troopers is a public safety issue that affects every driver, and it should be a priority to the state.