LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Traffic safety experts across Clark County are utilizing new technology to analyze pedestrian crash trends, all in an effort to save lives and bring solutions to different communities.
Andrew Bennett with the Clark County Office of Traffic Safety showed FOX5 the technology.
From 2018 to 2022, among more than 5,500 pedestrian crashes across Clark County, the program analyzes a variety of factors: speeding, DUIs, jaywalking, how and where the crash occurred, whether the pedestrian suffered minor to major injuries, or if there was damage to any structures in the area.
By analyzing clusters of accidents in various parts of the Valley, leaders can analyze trends and then determine a variety of solutions.
“We’ve talked historically about the different approaches to traffic safety. The easiest answer is engineering education and enforcement. Each one of those has a role and responsibility,” Bennett said.
“One of the things that we’re trying to focus on more recently in our community is the safe systems approach, which is ensuring that our infrastructure is redundant: we understand that people are going to make mistakes and anything that we can do to make that crash, if that crash does happen, to lower the severity of that crash,” he said. “There’s a variety of different ways that we can make our roads safer with engineering, which we do every single day,” he said.
“There’s enforcement: making sure that our resources with our partners at Metro and all the law enforcement agencies know which are the streets that we believe we need to focus on. And then with education: being able to tell the story to the right people, of where people are dying or in these crashes in their community,” Bennett said.
Erin Breen of the UNLV Road Equity Alliance project explains how drivers play a major role in saving lives, especially when people jaywalk and illegally cross the street.
“The education of all of this is to try to get drivers to understand you play a major role in getting yourself home without an incident, but with vulnerable road users, getting home alive. And the biggest thing that you can do is take your foot off the gas, pay full attention, and be ready to stop. Expect the unexpected,” Breen said. “So drivers have probably the biggest role to play in pedestrian safety.”
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