Category: Motor Vehicle Accidents

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pedestrians are among the most vulnerable on American roadways. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that an estimated 76,000 pedestrians were seriously injured in auto accidents in 2012, and approximately 5,000 lost their lives. Within the next 24 hours, approximately 450 pedestrians will be treated in hospital emergency rooms in the United States for auto accident related injuries, and in the next hour, one person will die. Unfortunately, that number keeps going up, and the State of Nevada is not immune.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal recently reported that a man who was driving under the influence of alcohol struck and killed a motorcyclist with his SUV. Although the driver allegedly left the scene of the crash, witnesses were able to help law enforcement discover his location. He was arrested on charges of felony DUI resulting in death, failure to yield, and duty to stop at the scene of a crash, according to officials. A car accident attorney in Las Vegas may be aware that this is only one of 104 such incidents in the state between January 1 and May 11 of 2015.

Sharing the road with tractor trailers can leave Nevada drivers facing a significant risk of accidents. These massive vehicles dramatically outweigh passenger vehicles, and they are less responsive to driver input in emergency situations. Many of these issues are compounded when tractor trailers are overloaded, as any Las Vegas truck accident attorney would agree.

Nevada has more than 70,000 miles of roadways, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. These roads can be difficult to navigate without a map, but the proliferation of paper directions has dwindled in recent years thanks to new technologies.

An elderly pedestrian was killed in a hit and run by a drunk driver on Friday evening. The driver, 35-year-old Las Vegas man Peter Mitchel, struck a 69-year-old man who was attempting to cross Stober Boulevard around 6:30 pm. Mitchel returned in his Jeep to the scene about an hour later and was arrested.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced that they will be adding automatic braking to their 5-star safety ratings. This is a move that will have a far reaching impact that will reduce injuries and save many lives over the coming years.