
As if it is not terrorizing enough to drive among lost tourists, gawking Lyft and Uber drivers staring at their iPhone GPS, and assortment of pokey-Joes and the wannabe Dale Earnhardt, there lurks a danger even more sinister. The road beneath you.
Yes, bad roads cause car accidents. Even the best drivers can become a victim to an unkempt road with potholes, standing water, or bumpy surface. But take heart. There are things you can do to prevent it!
More ways bad roads cause accidents:
Think about your recent driving experience and see how many of the items below you encountered and can check off your list:
- Poorly engineered roadways
- Obstructed vision and lines of sight
- Poorly synchronized traffic signals
- Road debris especially on highspeed interstates
- Faded lane striping
- Broken and missing road reflectors
- Confusing signage
- Construction cone zones
- Pooling water
- Disrepair
- Oily or cracked road surfaces
- No notice lane shifts and merges
- Uneven lanes
- Deadly intersections
- Saw-toothed roads
- Poor lighting
Saw-toothed roads
In the Computer Age one still can’t help but marvel at how badly surface roads and high-speed highways are designed. Las Vegas is famous for its saw-toothed roads. Those are the ones where, without warning, lanes suddenly narrow down or even disappear.
Highway merging
You’ve got to love some of the thoughtless merges that exist. I hate the one coming in from Summerlin on 95 and exiting off onto southbound Rainbow Boulevard. We are trapped against a high retaining wall while decelerating and coming around a blind curve and dealing with highspeed traffic immediately merging in from our left while looking to merge right onto the boulevard. It’s nuts! I suspect you have a favorite.
Potholes due to weather
It seldom rains here. Snow is a rarity. Yet we have potholes pockmarking our streets like a prairie dog habitat in western Kansas. And there’s a serious waiting game going on to see how long it takes to get them fixed.
Standing water
Speaking of rain, we all know to slow down and take it easy because there’s a lot of reckless drivers out there. But, come on! Even in a light drizzle we must dodge swimming pools of water collected against curbs. Baloney! Build roads with proper drainage!
Construction zones cause accidents
Construction cone zones are inevitable in America’s 2nd fastest growing city. Traffic seems to either inch by or fly by them. There’s no in-between. The bane of it all is that these highway cone zones last longer than an iceberg near Nome, Alaska, while casinos get built in a few months. Makes no sense.
Old roads
Roadway disrepair drives us all crazy. Here’s a fine example. Think about the rollercoaster on southbound I-95 when heading away from downtown toward Charleston Boulevard. You bounce up and down like a kid on a pogo stick. It has been that way for years.
Add up all the badly designed merging lanes, short on and off ramps, potholes lurking in the dark waiting to blow your tires out and rearrange your alignment; and it’s possible roadways cause more accidents than drivers!
What you can do to improve the roads
We don’t have to sit silently and be victimized by roads, inattentive governmental officials, or decaying infrastructure.
Below are things we can do:
Report potholes and roads in disrepair
- Each municipality has a road or highway department. Contact them and let them know what is going on. Some take reports about road damage and issues on their websites or via special landing pages or phone lines. Below are some likely places to start: The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) has a toll-free hotline to report road issues 877.NV-Roads (877.687-6237).
- For Las Vegas roads, call 702-229-6227. Contact the city via https://cityoflasvegas.formstack.com/forms/contact_main
- For Henderson, call 702-267-3259 or go online to https://www.cityofhenderson.com/public-works/home
- And for North Las Vegas call 702-633-1264. Reach them online at [email protected]
- Clark County roads, dial 702-455-6000 or email [email protected]
Notify media
KTNV-TV13 has a department that actively pursues reasonable complaints. KVVU-TV5 has a “Rant” where you may record or write a complaint. Nate Tannenbaum on KLAS TV8 has a “What’s Driving You Crazy” feature where you can register complaint and raise awareness.
Make others aware
Contact neighborhood groups like HOAs, NextDoor, PTA, nearby churches and schools. You might consider notifying area businesses. When major groups and businesses become aware of negative impacts on them, they can carry a lot of clout.
Place negative advertising
Form a group and raise money to place ads of complaint in media like newspaper, Facebook, and outdoor signage. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. You can make a lot of noise for very little money on Facebook. Traditional, high reach media like radio, outdoor, and television tend to be expensive, but highly effective.
Write, email, or text blast
Reach appropriate governmental officials and civic leaders via letter, text, or email and tell them about your dissatisfaction. Political animals and even stodgy bureaucrats respond to pressure. And when you hit them, ding every rung on the ladder. Meaning, if I’m contacting the guy or gal in the road department, I also copy or contact my city council member or county commissioner, and the mayor. The more we throw at the wall, the more likely our message will stick. And remember to follow up with these people. Too often, they listen politely to our first request and then forget about it. There is no such thing as “one and done.” If it’s important to you, make it important to them by touching them more than once. Be polite, of course. The difference between being concerned or being a pest lies in being polite.
Have a good personal injury lawyer
When you suspect an accident was caused by the demons of road construction, existing road conditions, or the absence of reasonable precautions in maintenance or repair, contact an attorney. Don’t underestimate the harm roads cause and the factors they contribute to causing accidents or amplifying damage and injuries.
The Paul Powell Law Firm cares about what happened to you, and most importantly they are prepared to see to it that what happens to you next is more controlled and in your best interests. For decades they have represented and protected thousands of clients like you. Reach out and contact the lawyer who never takes more than you get from your case, and he puts it in writing.
Paul Powell. More Lawyer. Less Fee.