DUIs and traffic accidents in Las Vegas

Drinking driving and cell phones were features hit the headlines hard this week with fatalities and fender benders throughout the city highlighting the cities growing traffic issues.
The urban sprawl of Las Vegas is vastly different from the small town comfort of rural Texas but there are issues which reach across culture and population. While covering the police beat for the Orange Leader a small town newspaper in rural Texas I had the misfortunate to cover the DUI related death of a young college student whose car was hit by a man driving under the influence of alcohol went the wrong way up a highway on off ramp.
Drinking and driving has always been a fact of life in a city devoted to the permanent part time, a city that has grown beyond the wildest dreams of the Rat Pack generation entrepreneurs who built the city’s first mega casinos.
The Las Vegas Review Journal reported the death of a 37-year-old woman North Las Vegas woman Wednesday
“A 37-year-old North Las Vegas woman died early today after being rear-ended at the corner of Decatur Boulevard and Smoke Ranch Road, Las Vegas police said.
According to police, the woman was waiting at a red light at the intersection around 5:17 a.m. when her 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier was rear ended by a 21-year-old male driver,”The man accused in the drunk driving death of 18-year-old Lindsay Bennet had his bail reduced after a stream of friends testified on his behalf.A traffic accident occurring on Las Vegas blvd had a less tragic ending. The driver of a passenger car traveling down the strip in we hours of Tuesday morning ran head on into a crane that was being used by workers at the new City Center construction project. The driver was reportedly using his cell phone when the accident happened seeming to confirm suspicions that talking and driving are almost as dangerous as drinking and driving.One study confirms that during the 90s cell phones were life savers when used by motorists to alert authorities to accidents and hazards in a timely manner but have turned into a hazard as their use proliferated reaching what the article critical mass of 100 million phones in the US. Hands free cell phone conversations were found to increase stopping distance by 5 meters or slightly more than five yards for a  car going 60 mph.Younger drivers are far more likely to be arrested for DUI than 50-years-of-age who have the lowest DUI arrest rate of all the age groups. Men are five times more likely to have a DUI than adult female drivers. Sixteen percent of the estimated 186 million drivers in the US reported they had driven under the influence of either alcohol or drugs or both.

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Boy, 10, injured in crash; driver arrested for DUI

A 10-year-old boy is in critical condition after the 2004 Chevy Trailblazer he was riding in crashed through a block wall and into the side of a house in the northwest Las Vegas Valley Sunday night, Metro Police said this morning.
The crash occurred about 7:28 p.m. Sunday when the sport utility vehicle, going southbound on Michael Way as it fled from two previous hit-and-run collisions, veered westbound and struck the block wall at the corner of Seattle Slew Drive, police said.
The SUV continued through the wall and into the backyard of 2429 Bay Meadows Circle, where it struck the east wall of the house and stopped, according to evidence at the scene and witness accounts, police said.
The boy, who wasn't wearing a seatbelt, was taken to University Medical Center's trauma unit with life-threatening injuries, police said.
The driver of the SUV, 25-year-old Juan Esteves-Villegas of Las Vegas, was also taken to UMC with minor injuries, police said. He was arrested in connection with driving under the influence with substantial bodily harm, a felony, and child neglect with substantial bodily harm, also a felony, police said.

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