A 12-year-old Las Vegas boy died Oct. 6 after being hit by an SUV while riding his bike to school. More than 90 students have been struck by cars going to or coming from schools so far this school year — that’s more than double last year’s number. In response, local municipalities and the school district have stepped up efforts to increase safety. Despite this, the accident rate continues to climb. Local
Recently, law enforcement agencies joined forces with CCSD police for what they called a “saturation detail,” as they patrolled several schools in the morning and afternoon rush hours.
While Tonia and Robert Watts waited outside Rancho High School to pick up their kids, they witnessed what they call “problem behavior," every day.
“Kids are not walking on the crosswalk like they should. They're walking in between the cars. And the cars are just trying to fly through while the buses, they're trying to get the buses out. And sometimes they just jump out in front of cars,” Tonia Watts said.
“Right now, it's just chaos. They're just going through buses. They're not using the crosswalk. They're just going out in traffic without even stopping. Just like right now behind me,” Robert Watts said.
“You get cars that are doing U-turns when they shouldn't be doing a U-turn. You'll catch them flipping around and almost hitting the kid that did actually go in the crosswalk,” Tonia Watts said.
Examples like this are why the Southern Nevada cities of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, as well as Clark County, are taking action. This school year, they allocated additional funding to hire a crossing guard company to place more guards at more elementary schools.
It was a drizzly September afternoon, outside Rancho High School, where the Watts parents were waiting as students burst en masse from the building, dispersing in every direction. Cars lined up along the street, waiting to pick up the students. Buses filled the parking lot.
Amid the chaos, the crossing guards themselves were too busy to stop what they were doing. But Lieutenant Michael Campbell with the Clark County School District’s Traffic Division had a few minutes to talk as the chaos settled.
The number of kids being struck by cars has increased this year, according to Campbell.
“We're at 54 this year,” Lt. Campbell said. So almost double. And then this time two years ago was about 35. So this is our highest year ever.” But since then, Lt. Campbell said there have been 94 students involved in accidents going to and coming from school. There have also been two fatalities this month.
He says the additional crossing guards seem to have helped at elementary schools, but the accident rate has actually increased at high schools.
Campbell says drivers are often at fault but so are the kids.
“A lot of the time, the kids are just walking out or darting out into the street on their bikes. And you know, about half of them … of our crashes are due to kids on these e-bikes now and the e-scooters,” Campbell said.
A common theme was people said everyone was in their own world, focused on their phones and not paying attention to their surroundings.
Bus driver Alejandro Navarro says he often encounters drivers who ignore the stop arm on his school bus.
“You get to a stop [to] drop off some student, those lights come out, and people just drive past and they don’t even pay attention to the bus. I think some people just get distracted on their phones and they don’t pay attention to what’s going on in the street,” Navarro said.
Navarro and his colleague, Alejandro Caballero, both drive buses for special needs students and say they take their jobs seriously.
“There’s a lot of responsibility [with] what I’ve got on board. They’re not my child … so anything … what’s going on with the child … It’s on me. So I’m very very careful [with]… what I’m doing on my job,” Caballero said.
This fall, the school district formed a new “working group” consisting of law enforcement, school teachers and administrators, city and county officials, and parents. It’s supposed to address the issues complicating school traffic safety.
“So, if a crosswalk needs help on this side of the street, where it's not connecting safely to the other side of the street, now it's going to take at least two cities to fix it. And some of those schools are surrounded by four different [jurisdictions]” Campbell said. “It could be the city of Las Vegas on one side, North Las Vegas and the county, unincorporated Clark County on another side, plus the school district needing to be involved. So, those discussions are now happening.”
Another problem: The logistics of policing the country’s fifth-largest school district. It’s an equation that can’t be solved by additional policing alone, Lt. Campbell said.
“There's just so many schools, and that's 300,000 students. And busing alone is something that's just huge, because it's 1,500 bus routes every day with 36,000 different bus stops. So when somebody is like, why can't the school police get out here to these bus stops? Again, there's like 30 patrol officers. And then the six guys on bikes. And it's like, yeah, we've tried to follow a bus around here or there, but 36,000 bus stops is a lot.”
On this one day, Lieutenant Campbell said, 16 officers who were policing more than 20 schools wrote over 100 citations.
Parents Tonia and Robert Watts support more punitive actions, such as tickets for parents and students who break traffic laws.
“These kids got it so easy, and their parents don't want to be accountable. And they want to blame everything on the staff or the school,” Tonia Watts said.
“See?” Robert Watts interjected. “Running right in the street. Now, if there was a car coming, hit a brake, the parents would want to blame Rancho High School,” Tonia Watts said. “There should be a staff there making sure they're using that crosswalk,” added Robert Watts.
Ultimately — parents, bus drivers and law enforcement say — it’s up to everyone to be more aware and responsible.
Parents need to be the ones to take accountability, and hold their kids responsible, too. Not just the school district,” Tonia Watts said.
“If we could be patient, if we could be kind to each other, if we could look out for each other, if we could treat each other like we're each other's family members. Like each kid is your own child, each crossing guard is like, you know, they're somebody's grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle. All these people matter. They're lives. They're not obstacles. They shouldn't be treated like obstacles because you have to hit the brakes for an extra, what, five seconds. I know that it's chaotic, but if everybody could be a little more patient, that's how we could get better,” Lt. Campbell said.
The new Traffic Safety Working Group is expected to meet later this fall to continue finding ways to improve safety around schools.
Guests: Tonia and Robert Watts, parents; Lt. Michael Campbell, CCSD Traffic Division
