Drunk-Driver Crackdown Sought

It’s a 24-hour town with a 24-hour tap. They never stop pouring the booze in Las Vegas, which means many come pouring out onto the streets in no shape to drive.

The number of drunk driving arrests is holding steady in the Las Vegas Valley. But the figures belie the emotional toll imposed by a series of crashes that have grabbed headlines in recent months, leaving 12 people dead and many calling for tougher laws against driving under the influence.

A Megabucks winner is receiving lengthy rehabilitation and her sister is dead after their car was rear-ended by a driver with a long history of driving under the influence.

Six teenagers on a highway cleanup crew are dead after an exotic dancer later charged with DUI fell asleep and ran off the freeway.

Another exotic dancer is charged with DUI after driving onto the sidewalk in front of a Strip resort, mowing down a group of tourists--killing one.

And a man is charged with DUI after his truck plowed into a car killing four, including an unborn baby.

Stewart Bell, district attorney for Clark County, in which Las Vegas is located, said he hopes the tragedies have some positive result. “The fact we’ve had a number of high-profile cases, hopefully, will be a wake-up call to the public that this kind of conduct cannot occur,” he said.

Sandy Heverly, head of the Stop DUI organization, is concerned that Las Vegas’ free-wheeling atmosphere generates problems with drunk driving.

“I think there’s a mind-set, the perception by people who move here, that anything goes, including drinking and driving,” said Heverly. Her family was nearly killed in 1974 when a drunk driver traveling 65 mph hit their camper.

Bell believes that Nevada has good laws on the books.

“The DUI groups have worked hard through the years to give law enforcement laws to take drunk drivers off the road,” he said.

The state had 11,913 DUI arrests in 1999, down from 12,196 in 1998 but up from 10,939 in 1993. The population grew 40% from 1993-99.

Figures from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety show that Clark County had 195 traffic fatalities in 1999 out of 350 statewide. Of those, 69 in the county and 129 statewide were involved alcohol. In 1993, the state reported 263 traffic fatalities, with 142 of them in Clark County. Of that number, 103 were alcohol-related, with 55 of those in Clark County.

Heverly wants to see Nevada’s blood-alcohol standard changed to lower the DUI level from 0.10% to 0.08% and increase the criminal charges for a DUI death to second-degree murder, punishable by 25 years to life. “We believe it’s murder at random and would not want it to be probational,” she said.