Community “leaders” tout their efforts to reduce pedestrian deaths highlighting new crosswalks, enhanced enforcement and tougher penalties. As they pat themselves on the back, those deaths continue while their actions merely provide talking points and re-election fodder.
The focus should be on enforcement, causation and punishment. You don’t have to dig deep to identify that we fail at all three. A high school senior was killed by an impaired driver. The response was crosswalks and crossing guards. Noble ideas, but no relationship to the cause of this death.
Many accidents are caused by impaired drivers but, in Las Vegas, there is no responsibility for over-serving those drunks who go on to kill or maim. Dram shop laws exist in 37 states, but not Nevada. Casinos have the power to lobby for a change in the law … or block it. Politicians fall in line with the casino perspective rather than doing the right thing for the community.
There is no shortage of leaders telling us to slow down and bemoaning the state of our streets. Politicians are proud that they have made sentencing more severe for DUI-related offenses. But last week the Review-Journal reported that a former Raider is now up for parole after killing an innocent girl and her dog only five years ago while driving 156 mph. She is still dead. He may be walking — and driving — the streets again soon.
The lack of courage and competence around this issue is appalling, and it is magnified every time we see an interview with a police leader announcing a targeted ticket campaign for a couple days, a casino contributing to an anti-drunken driving campaign or a court official whining about lack of punishment options. In Las Vegas, the power of illusion takes place on the stage and in the streets.
