There’s a plan to help change ‘culture of bad driving’ in Las Vegas Valley

Law enforcement agencies across the valley are joining forces, forming a traffic task force to decrease road fatalities.

Metropolitan Police Department Deputy Chief Jose Hernandez said during a news conference at the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign on Monday that 299 people in the valley died in crashes in the first 10 months of the year.

“This is unacceptable,” Hernandez said. “This is why today we’re launching a coordinated traffic enforcement initiative. Our mission is to reduce unsafe driving, prevent crashes before they happen and remove dangerous drivers from our roadways.”

Hernandez was joined by representatives from the Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City police departments, with the Nevada Highway Patrol and Clark County School District Police.

The initiative would employ a “data-driven deployment of resources,” according to Hernandez. He said specific locations — dangerous intersections and major roadways with frequent crashes — would be targeted through increased patrols and visibility.

As of Sunday, there had been 153 traffic-related fatalities in Metro’s jurisdiction in 2025.

In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week, Metro Sheriff Kevin McMahill said that, despite goals established at the start of the year, the department was still “not hitting the mark on traffic fatalities.”

He speculated that, had the proposals he presented to lawmakers this year passed, Metro could more effectively address what he described as “a culture of bad driving” across the valley.

“This is a massive problem that we have here, and it requires a community-wide response, so I’m going to continue to focus on that piece of it,” McMahill said.

Senate Bill 415 would have allowed the installation of traffic enforcement cameras in areas prone to crashes. It was heard in the Senate Committee on Growth and Infrastructure in late March, but it failed to get a vote out of the committee.

“I’m continuing to have conversations with other elected officials about what a limited pilot program would look like — maybe 10 intersections where we could do speed control,” he added. “I don’t believe that these problems are not able to be solved.”

In November, the Senate unanimously passed Assembly Bill 6, which doubles traffic penalties in school safety zones and gives local governments greater control over the zones. The bill came years after a Review-Journal investigation revealed that many traffic citations, including serious violations, were routinely reduced to parking tickets in court.

Kevin Honea, deputy chief of the Nevada Highway Patrol, also addressed the conference on Monday. He said that through collaborations among Southern Nevada law enforcement agencies, “lives will be saved” on the road.

“This is a shared commitment,” Honea said. “The people of Las Vegas deserve to be able to drive safely from their home to work every day. This partnership will identify the behaviors that lead to crashes and rectify them.”

Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.