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By Jackie Valley (contact) 
Thursday, July 19, 2012 | 5:47 p.m.
A hundred people gathered at Metro Police headquarters Thursday for the department’s first traffic symposium, filling tables where ideas blossomed to reduce traffic accidents.
If victims of fatal accidents this year in Nevada had filled the room instead, a few more tables would have been necessary. So far this year, 132 people have died on state roadways, according to the Nevada Office of Traffic Safety.
That’s why Metro called the daylong brainstorming session, which included law enforcement employees, traffic engineers, business leaders, judges and a variety of other Southern Nevada residents. In Metro’s jurisdiction alone, 66 people have died in traffic accidents this year — an 83 percent increase compared to this time in 2011, said Capt. Mark Tavarez of Metro’s traffic bureau.
Dr. Jay Coates, vice chair of the trauma unit at University Medical Center, said multiple patients wound up in the hospital each day after serious car crashes, resulting in significant socioeconomic effects when injuries prevent those people from returning to work.
“For every fatality we see, there are at least 10 to 12 people either temporarily or permanently disabled” by accidents, he said.
Traffic symposium organizers asked attendees to consider three factors: public awareness and education, traffic enforcement, and engineering and design of roadways.
Overall, attendees found police presence satisfactory in most areas but proposed adding more unmarked patrol cars to forces. Attendees also lamented what they perceived to be court leniency — speeding tickets reduced to parking tickets, for instance.
Several recent technology upgrades, such as LED traffic lights and sophisticated crosswalk safety systems in Clark County, earned praise from the group, which called for more widespread implementation.
Tavarez said the department would document input collected at the symposium and use it to develop new traffic strategies. A Community Coalition on Traffic Safety will be the outgrowth of the symposium with monthly meetings, he said.
“There’s always room for improvement,” he said. “We don’t want (the conversation) to go away after the symposium.”
Sun reporter Jackie Valley participated in the event.
They need to get rid of the reduction of tickets. If you drive like an idiot and get caught then you need to pay for it.
So how many traffic tickets has everybody had in here? 65, 35, 3, 7? No reason to ask what they were for because in the end they are all "parking tickets" in the courts eyes. Haha.
When I was in elementary school and the bell rings to go back to home room, we weren't allowed to run in the hallways. If we were caught by a hall monitor, we get to stay after school along with the others who were caught running. We were never given an option to have our "running citations" reduced to a "standing citation". Another thing we were taught was the game Red Light Green Light.
For a comparison, San Jose, Calif, bigger than Vegas, just had its 13th fatal accident last week....
C'mon Metro...give us the politically incorrect reason why a city like San Jose has 13 fatalities and Las Vegas has 132. It can't be random.
There's one thing I know in this town...if you speed you will get tickets. LasVegas police are very adept in catching you, and they will. I'll contend that anyone in this town that is a consistent speeder has a bunch of tickets. I see a lot of you soccer moms in big SUV's getting stopped all the time.
Enforce the fines and points. No reductions.
People should drive like it matters and the tickets should be made to hurt.
I drive through all areas of this town and am constantly appalled at the lackadaisical approach people take to driving. A friend who was driving with me the other day thought that I was an aggressive driver, but I countered, no not an aggressive drive just a defensive driver.
I have been driving for over 40 years and have two speeding tickets to my name. Both of which come from driving too fast on the open roads in rural Nevada and Utah. I have never been in an accident, but have avoided several by constantly scanning 360 degrees while driving.
Drive like your life depends on it, because it does.
btw, in the last five years alone I have driven approximately 200,000 miles in cities and towns throughout the western U.S.