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Clark County will be one of the first municipalities to have its own office of traffic safety

It's expected to be operational in early 2022
speed limit signs.PNG
Posted at 5:06 PM, Nov 16, 2021
and last updated 2021-11-16 23:22:21-05

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Excessive speeding is becoming more of a problem in the valley. The state's Office of Traffic Safety says more Nevada drivers are driving faster — and more people are getting killed because of it.

When you take a look before the pandemic, 30% of the state’s fatalities were speed-related. Now, it is about half.

“It’s bad for tourism, it’s bad for our economy, and it’s bad for quality of life,” said Michael Naft of the Clark County Commission serving District A.

That is why Clark County will soon get its own Office of Traffic Safety.

“The cost to Clark County of these serious accidents and injuries, at $1.5billion — the significance of a small staff dedicated to reducing that burden to the community is going to be well worth every single penny,” Naft said.

With the problem of speeding becoming worse, it is coming at the perfect time.

“Citations of 100 miles an hour-plus went up 26 percent from 2019 to 2020,” said Andrew Bennett, public information officer at the Nevada Office of Traffic Safety. “And we expect that to go up further in 2021.”

There is a lot of blame to go around — chief among them: the pandemic. People became used to clearer roads and lower enforcement, and those behaviors are still present, Bennett said.

“We need to make sure that our roadways are designed so people can’t go 156 miles an hour in a residential area,” said Bennett. “We need to make sure that enforcement is prevalent, make sure people understand there are consequences to your actions.”

“Speed kills,” said Naft. “End of story. So, the more we can do to educate and inform people of the risks of the road, the more we can do to design roads that don’t allow you to go 150-plus miles an hour, the better it will be for all of our residents in Clark County.”

Naft says he expects the Clark County Office of Traffic Safety to be ready to go by January 2022.