Locals may think that I am stating the obvious.
But from my personal perspective, it appears to be getting worse.
Two days in a row: Screeeeeeeeeech …. BOOM! Screeeeeeeeech …. BOOM!
Both of the accidents are pictured above.
Two days in a row, I have looked out, and seen accidents that defy any real rationale, other than the drivers had their head up their respective asses.
Since living here, these are far from the only two accidents I have seen. From the different places I have lived around town, I have seen hundreds from my own window.
And for every accident I witness, I see at least 20 more near-misses. I hear at least one long “screeeeeeech” hourly. And I am not being hyperbolic for effect. It really is that bad.
About half of the time the owners will leave the scene and not call the cops. Whether it be for insurance reasons, or legal status reasons … I don’t know.
But suffice to say, many accidents that happen in this town are not reported (and therefore not statistically quantified).
In both of the accidents above, there was not much traffic, and the roads were reasonably open.
So how did these respective drivers slam into the vehicles in front of them?
I have no fucking idea. Not even a clue. In both of these cases, the driver would have had to be reading “War and Peace” from cover to cover without looking up at the road. Even a cursory glance at the road ahead would have revealed to them that they were approaching a stopped vehicle.
I have said it before and I will say it again, this town has, by far, the worst drivers I have ever encountered.
And I am not entirely speaking out of my ass here. I was a bicycle messenger in Washington DC and NYC, and was a longtime resident of both cities. I am intimately familiar with the drivers there. I lived in Los Angeles for several years and rode the 10, 405, and 101 nearly daily on my motorcycle. I’ve spent time in most other major cities in this country … Boston, Chicago, Philly, etc. I’ve even ridden in Mexico City taxicabs which should be classified as “thrill rides” in and of themselves.
But I have never, ever, EVER, in all my years on earth seen less competent drivers than I have experienced right here in Las Vegas.
Yes, yes, I know I will get emails saying “Well, you obviously haven’t been to XYZ City because the drivers here are much worse.”
Save the emails, because you are wrong.
Everyone thinks their drivers are the worst, because they experience them daily and are annoyed by them every day.
But no matter how piss-poor crappy you think your drivers are, and they might very well be … Las Vegas drivers are worse.
I don’t care about statistics. We have more illegal aliens than most cities, and our cops are more concerned with raising revenue than helping people (I saw motorists wait 90 minutes for a cop to arrive at an accident last year before giving up and leaving) . I think more of our accidents go unreported than most other places.
So take the statistics and shove them up your ass, because no matter what they say, I promise you that our drivers are worse.
I should actually have known this before moving here.
On my very first trip to Vegas, I found myself driving down Valley View toward the Rio. I saw this large truck about a quarter mile behind me, and the lights kept getting brighter and brighter very quickly. I estimate that he was doing about 80mph. When the lights got ultra bright, I yanked the steering wheel to the right and pulled off the road onto the sidewalk. The guy missed us by mere inches. He had no intention of stopping, and if it wasn’t for our overt paranoia about the vehicle behind us, the occupants of our car would have been road pizza.
And since the road was all but deserted, he would have gotten away with it. And since he was going so fast, we could not get his plate number.
There was no statistic for that certainly-fatal incident that was only averted because of the unusual attention that we paid to the road.
The question that I continue to ponder is … why are drivers in this town so completely and utterly incompetent?
I’m not sure why Vegas drivers are bad, but I think I do know why drivers in general suck.
Because there is no real penalty.
I posted this exact theory before in another article. But I believe that it does bear repeating:
I accumulated hours for a private pilot’s license back in the day.
If I take off from Bummfuck, Nevada en route to Buttfuck, Nevada in a 70Mph, 95Hp single-engine aircraft, and fly over 100 miles of nothing but sand, I need many, many hours of expensive instruction to have the privilege of doing this. What would happen if I crashed? At worst, I would kill a desert snake, and maybe displace some sand. But do you know what else would happen?
My license would be immediately suspended, pending an extensive review by the FAA and the NTSB, and I would be lucky to ever fly again.
Okay, so let’s think of a scenario that is a little less dramatic.
What would happen if I overshot the runway by 10 feet and slightly scratched a retaining fence, but otherwise injured nobody?
What would happen then?
My license would be immediately suspended, pending an extensive review by the FAA and the NTSB, and I would be lucky to ever fly again.
Okay, what about something even less dramatic than that.
What if I simply ignored the instructions of an air traffic controller (the stoplights of the sky) … injuring nobody?
My license would be immediately suspended, pending an extensive review by the FAA and the NTSB, and I would be lucky to ever fly again.
And if I did ever fly again, I better make damn sure that I never again make the same mistake, or my license would be immediately revoked.
To put it simply, you are not allowed to make “mistakes”. None. It is completely unacceptable.
You also need to get a yearly physician’s exam to make absolutely sure that you are physically able to avoid injuring a desert cactus.
Okay, now let’s assume that I want to operate a 300Hp SUV down crowded city streets at 45mph+, mere inches from other vehicles and pedestrians.
Wow, the licensing requirement for that must be really difficult. After all, it is infinitely more dangerous and requires a much higher degree of attention and focus. And if I made a mistake, surely the penalties would be swift and extreme. After all, I am operating in an extraordinarily crowded space with very little tolerance for error. If I thought a pilot’s license was hard to get, then one of these “motor vehicle licenses” must require skills testing above and beyond my wildest dreams.
Right? RIGHT?
Uh, no.
The great irony is that anyone with an IQ of 60 or above can simply take a written test until they pass (which could be done by randomly filling in circles), go through the motions of taking a “driving test”, and obtain a license to plow down any street on planet earth.
Oh, and they are allowed to make “mistakes”. “Points” are subtracted and cursory fines are given for recklessly endangering the lives of … well, pretty much everyone. What is the difference between running a red light in a 3,000lb vehicle, and closing your eyes while discharging a shotgun on a street corner? As far as I can tell … there is no difference. Maybe you’ll hit someone, maybe you won’t. But the former will get you a ticket, whereas the latter will land you in jail.
I don’t get it. I don’t even come close to getting it.
And what is even more ridiculous is that people seem to like this system, although they would go completely ballistic and call for the head of any pilot who failed to heed a traffic pattern instruction and caused a near-miss with a passenger aircraft.
The public likes it because it’s easy, the governments like it because licensing and fines are cash cows, the Insurance industry likes it because they legally have to be used, automakers love it because any asswipe can buy their product (unlike Cessna), the Legal industry loves it because they make a fortune on the “mistakes”, and the Medical industry loves it because it ensures a steady stream of business.
A license which requires someone to pay attention could potentially kill the economy.
Who honestly takes driving seriously? Who gets in, and 100% focuses on the task of safely piloting a vehicle? Who uses turn signals? Who drives like the lives of other people depend upon it?
Some guy named Fred in Dubuque, Iowa … that’s who. And he’s considered really uncool. Well, everyone in Iowa is considered really uncool, but that’s not the point.
Airplanes have auto-pilot and flying one can be incredibly boring. But you still can’t generally find a 300Watt Sound System with Sub Woofers in any airplane.
So what is my point?
Simply that if you drive a motor vehicle in Las Vegas, chances are high that you are a danger to society, and that you completely and utterly suck.
I suppose that’s pretty much it.
