Raiders, F1 Las Vegas Get Involved In Las Vegas’ Road Safety School Crisis After Four Students Killed By Motorists Last Year
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Imagine your city has a school district where an astonishing and disturbing 427 students were struck by motorists while they were either going to school or heading home during a school year.
The 427 students included four who were killed by drivers. One of the four was a 12-year-old girl bicycling home who avoided a car illegally parked in a bike lane and was struck and killed by a school bus operator.
Most cities in the U.S. would immediately declare this a crisis and launch drastic action to crack down on motorists crashing into students.
Here in Las Vegas and Clark County, a metro area that has earned a reputation for roads poorly designed for walkers and bicyclists and for routine lawless and reckless driving, it’s taken a while for the severity and extent of this road violence issue to take hold. LVSportsBiz.com has reported and columnized on this road public safety crisis in Las Vegas for years.
It took four dead students to get people’s attention in Las Vegas/Clark County and with the school year about to start Monday, the public service announcement-style messaging is in full swing.
At the NFL Raiders headquarters in Henderson Friday, team president Sandra Douglass Morgan joined Schools Superintendent Jhone Ebert and local police to urge Las Vegas motorists to slow down around schools, stay alert, follow posted school-zone restrictions, and make road safety a priority.
It should be noted that the Raiders did work with Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft last year on a road safety PSA video. The fact the Raiders are involved in road safety awareness is newsworthy in light of a former team player, Henry Ruggs, being involved in a fiery DUI crash that took the life of a local Las Vegas reident and her dog in 2021.
LVSportsBiz.com was not informed of today’s road safety awareness event, so we will quote a press release that included Douglass Morgan saying, in part, “Supporting school-zone traffic safety is an important part of creating an environment where students, families and educators can focus on what matters most – learning.”
Not only are the Raiders now involved in the road safety campaign, F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix is giving $100,000 to Clark County for a road safety awareness campaign. F1 stages its annual road race in the Strip corridor in November.
Naft, who worked on a school road safety committee that came up with 75 recommendations to improve safety for kids coming to and leaving schools around Clark County, appreciated the Raiders and F1 showing support for road safety.
“Reducing the alarming number of crashes involving students will require each of us working together. The efforts made by our traffic safety working group have laid out a road map for saving lives and protecting our most vulnerable residents,” Naft told LVSportsBiz.com Friday.
“The road map highlights the important role that education plays and it is why I am grateful to the Raiders, Las Vegas Grand Prix and all of our private sector partners who have committed to supporting these efforts,” Naft said.
One Clark County Commission candidate, Minja Yan, a Democrat, has identified transportation and road safety as important issues in her campaign.
“In addition to public awareness and educational programs about road safety, Clark County can also do better street design with wider sidewalks, painted crosswalks, better lighting. (Today’s) awareness program is a great initiative and I would love to see it extended into the future so we have safer road design for pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users,” Yan said Friday.
She supported a larger coalition of road safety advocates, both on the public and private sides.
PSA
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