Nevada Traffic Research & Education Newsletter
DECEMBER 30, 2022 // VOL. 12, ISSUE 01
Disponible en español
A descriptive analysis of statewide citations for speed-related violations (2018-2021)
By Emily Strickler, MPH; Ana Reyes, MS; Merika Charupoom; Nicole Bacani; and Deborah A. Kuhls, MD
Background Info
In Nevada there are 17 counties. Of these counties, Carson City, Clark County, and Washoe County are the most populous, classifying them as urban counties. That leaves 14 rural counties which include: Churchill, Douglas, Elko, Esmeralda, Eureka, Humboldt, Lander, Lincoln, Lyon, Mineral, Nye, Pershing, Storey, and White Pine.
Rural areas pose unique transportation challenges and are important to study in traffic safety. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), 31% of vehicle miles traveled in 2020 were in rural areas. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that in 2020, 43% (n = 16,665) of motor vehicle traffic fatalities occurred in rural areas in the United States [1]. Speeding is a dangerous driving behavior with potentially fatal consequences. Approximately 4,717 of the 16,665 motor vehicle traffic fatalities in rural United States were related to speeding according a report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
In Nevada, for the period of 2018-2021 there were over 1.4 million citations issued by law enforcement agencies. Of these citations, 759,338 (53%) were related to speeding behaviors. This TREND in focus descriptive analysis takes a look at differences between the speeding citations issued in rural and urban counties in Nevada.
Nevada Speed-Related Citations Summary
- Speed-related citations (N=759,338) accounted for approximately 53% of citations issued between 2018-2021 in Nevada (NV)
- 75.3% (571,769) of speeding citations were issued in urban counties (Carson City, Clark, and Washoe) and 24.7% (187,569) occurred in rural counties
- The leading rural counties for speeding citations were Elko County (4.1%) and Lyon County (2.9%)
- There are 44 law enforcement agencies in the state of Nevada. The top law enforcement agencies represented in the subsample of speeding citations were: Nevada Highway Patrol (47.2%), Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (28.2%), Henderson Police Department (5.1%), Reno Police Department (3.3%), and North Las Vegas Police Department (2.4%)
- Statewide, 17,579 of the speeding-related citations were associated with motor vehicle crashes between 2018-2021
- Of the two urban counties, Clark County had the highest percentage of speeding-related citations associated with a motor vehicle crash (2.8%)
- In the rural NV counties, there were 864 speeding-related citations associated with a motor vehicle crash accounting for 4.9% of all speeding-related citations associated with a crash (n=17,579). See Figure 1 for a visual of how each county’s data
Data received from the Office of Traffic Safety.
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