LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – Along a historically accident-prone stretch of highway Friday morning, high-pitch frequencies rattling out of police radar speed guns were the sounds of danger getting caught.
Several officers were stationed at or just past Boulder Highway and Flamingo Road on Friday morning. It is LVMPD’s dangerous intersection of focus for the month of August, following the release of its entire list of dangerous Las Vegas valley intersections at the start of this year.
The east Las Vegas valley intersection is where two pedestrians have died since October 2023. That’s in addition to numerous non-fatal collisions that left injury or destruction.
Just outside of this intersection, five people were sent to the hospital from a collision on Wednesday and an 82-year-old pedestrian was struck and killed in February.
Positioned in the gas station planter on the southeast corner, Sergeant Homan Lam was tasked with calling the violations as he saw them. Motor officers were staged around the corner responding to those calls, primarily for speeding, running red lights, not yielding the right of way, and driving while using a cell phone.
Drivers, conversely, were navigating pedestrians inside the roadway that’s infamous for jaywalking.
“They’re not able to slow down in time. It always cuts it close,” Lam said while scanning traffic Friday morning. “That’s what makes it dangerous for the pedestrians.”
Traffic Bureau Lieutenant Tony Cavaricci’s dilemma is despite more focused enforcement this year, statistics keep rising. Collisions in total are trending down but fatal crashes are not.
LVMPD reported 81 fatalities as of August 2, 2023. As of Friday of this year, 92 have been recorded.
Reckless driving, which includes speeding, remains a leading factor, narrowly surpassing the number of crashes involving pedestrians crossing where and when they’re not supposed to.
“I think our efforts are working, not as quickly as I would like them to work,” Cavaricci said outside Boulder Highway and Flamingo Road on Friday morning. “Oftentimes, we get excuses. ‘I thought I could make it. I was running late.’ None of that’s going to be important when you get yourself into an accident, hurt yourself, or hurt somebody else.”
Boulder Highway has been the subject of fatal collisions for years and is now the focus of redesign efforts to make it safer. Cavaricci believes deterring pedestrians from jaywalking may require physical obstacles.
“What potentially we can start seeing at some point is some fencing in the median to deter people from crossing the street,” Cavaricci said. “Ultimately, that’s what we want: cross where it’s safe to do so.”
LVMPD reported 39 citations distributed during the morning rush hour traffic at Boulder Highway and Flamingo Road on Friday morning. A majority were for speeding, running red lights, and using a cell phone while driving.
