Speeding tickets for Nevada drivers going over 100 mph have jumped 26%

Not agelong aft sunset Tuesday, Andrew Bennett lit a ample achromatic candle adjacent the intersection of Rainbow Boulevard and Spring Valley Parkway.

Hours earlier, a Corvette traveled astatine 156 mph connected Rainbow, moments earlier it struck a compact SUV, sidesplitting its operator and her dog. The sports car’s driver, erstwhile Raiders wide receiver Henry Ruggs, now faces charges of DUI resulting successful death and reckless driving, according to tribunal records.

Bennett said his candle was a tiny awesome to retrieve Tina Tintor, who died astatine property 23. He’s lit 318 others to grant radical killed by car crashes crossed Nevada truthful acold this year, 171 of which person been successful Clark County.

“We’re connected way to person the worst twelvemonth successful a decennary connected fatalities connected Nevada’s roadways this year,” said Bennett, programme manager for Zero Fatalities, the state’s authoritative postulation information program. “We’re astir a week distant from surpassing our worst year.”

In 2016, and again successful 2018, Nevada roadways saw 329 deaths.

The fig of fatalities dipped to 304 successful 2019, but they accrued to 318 successful 2020 adjacent arsenic galore radical were quarantined and worked from location owed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ruggs’ clang tied the 2020 total, Bennett said.

Excessive velocity has been a origin successful astir one-third of each fatal crashes successful the authorities successful caller years, Bennett said.

Some 4,400 speeding tickets were fixed successful Nevada to motorists going 100 mph oregon much past year, an summation of astir 26 percent from 2019, authorities statistic show. More than 2,500 were fixed successful Clark County successful 2020, according to the Nevada Department of Transportation.

Related: Video shows Ruggs speeding successful car with girlfriend, who says: ‘Slow down’

Bennett said Nevadans began driving much dangerously erstwhile streets were comparatively bare owed to the pandemic. Those behaviors person continued adjacent arsenic roadways person go busier.

Cases similar Ruggs are extreme, but not unheard of, Bennett said.

In July, a Lamborghini traveling 141 mph successful a 45 mph portion struck and killed a moped rider connected Russell Road successful the southwest Las Vegas Valley. The interaction divided the moped rider “in half,” Bennett said.

“These are highly convulsive events, and erstwhile speeding is simply a large origin they’re adjacent much violent,” helium said. “We cannot spend to lone speech astir this erstwhile it is precocious profile.”

More than 40 percent of fatal crashes impact drivers impaired by alcohol, marijuana oregon different substance, according to a 5-year moving mean from 2015 done 2019.

Ruggs’ humor intoxicant level was 0.16 percent, doubly the state’s ineligible limit, according to the Clark County District Attorney’s Office.

Driver safety

People injured successful high-speed crashes are often admitted with breached bones, organ harm and friction burns, if they are ejected from their vehicle, said Dr. Deborah Kuhls, a trauma and captious attraction surgeon for the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine astatine UNLV and UMC.

Many request a ventilator to respire by the clip they scope the infirmary and request country close away.

“It’s a uncommon time that goes by that I don’t spot 1 oregon much patients from a conveyance clang that sustained precise important injuries arsenic a effect of speeding,” Kuhls said.

Crash victims successful accidents from cars traveling 75 mph are astir 1.5 times much apt to person a superior encephalon oregon spine injury, compared to those traveling betwixt 55 and 75 mph, said Kuhls, who is besides a researcher successful UNLV’s postulation information probe group.

Someone traveling astatine Ruggs’ reported velocity could spot those likelihood summation “exponentially,” Kuhls said.

Officials are moving to curb speeding connected arterial roads successful Las Vegas.

The agelong of Rainbow Boulevard that Ruggs crashed connected is designed to amended operator safety, said Erin Breen, manager of UNLV’s Road Equity Alliance Project.

Tree-lined medians abstracted opposing directions of postulation that are each 3 lanes wide. The posted velocity bounds is 45 mph, and reddish ceramic walls abstracted cars from houses lining the street.

“It makes it adjacent sadder to maine due to the fact that specified attraction was taken to effort to forestall a clang similar this from happening by doing immoderate ‘traffic calming’,” Breen said.

Contact Michael Scott Davidson astatine sdavidson@reviewjournal.com oregon 702-477-3861. Follow @davidsonlvrj connected Twitter.