LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — This week, the North Las Vegas Hispanic Citizens Academy took a look at the police department’s traffic division.
According NLVPD, traffic division officers are responsible for the “proactive enforcement of traffic laws” in the City of North Las Vegas. The objective of the department is to help reduce vehicle collisions, maintain pedestrians’ safety and “upholding the safe and legal use of roadways for all users.” This unit is also responsible for investigating car crashes, fatal collisions, hit-and-runs, and DUIs that occur within the City of North Las Vegas.
While crashes can cause a big headache for the owners of the vehicles, not all collisions require the attention of NLVPD.
The officers will investigate collisions if someone has been injured, the damage is more than $750, when the crash involves a city vehicle, and/or the car was involved in a hit-and-run.
If the crash happened on private property, officers will go out and investigate if someone was injured or died, there was a hit-and-run, and/or the crash involved a city vehicle.
Once at the scene, the officer will park their vehicle in a safe location and begin to assess the scene. Officers will look at a range of evidence, which can include the tire marks on the road, the damage to the cars, and speak with witnesses.
NLVPD said some of the reasons a crash can happen is if someone has a medical episode, human error, kids, if people are eating, passengers, drivers are sleepy, eating or drinking, or are under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Drinking and driving has been a long-standing issue in the valley and during week five of the academy, students learned how officers can detect if someone is driving under the influence.
Every day, about 37 people in the U.S. die in a drunk driving crash. That’s one person every 39 seconds, according to the U.S. Department Of Transportation.
Officer Navarro, who was teaching the class on DUI, said one of the many indicators that someone is driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol is the way they drive.
After someone suspected of driving under the influence is pulled over, they are given field sobriety test.
1) The Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus
2) The Walk-and-Turn
3) One-Leg stand
Two students in the academy also volunteered to drink alcohol throughout the roughly three-hour class last Wednesday to demonstrate how quickly alcohol can impair someone’s judgment. However, it also demonstrated how it can impact men and women differently.
Jorge Giron volunteered to drink throughout the class.
“I believe that if were to drive a car, I might have some equilibrium issues. I think that it’s important that if people are thinking of driving, to not drink or call an Uber,” Giron said.
He said that Wednesday’s class was a great way to create awareness of the dangers of driving under the influence.
“My intention is to participate and share a message to people to not drink and drive,” Giron said.
The two volunteers who were drinking during the class also had a sober and responsible adult drive them back home.
