'It's the worst year we've had': New driving initiative vows to crack down on Nevada roadways

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — With New Year’s Eve weekend looming, our law enforcement, UMC, and local families have a message for Vegas drivers and pedestrians.

“We walked into the secluded room at UMC’s trauma,” said Marcia Fajardo, who lost her 16-year-old son, Jaelan. “I saw Jaelan’s lifeless body lying there under the sheets, I will never forget that sight and the smell.”

There was not a dry eye in the house as family member after family member recollected their experience of losing a loved one on Nevada roadways.

“This is a group you want to be a part of,” said Jason Patchett, who lost his 8-year-old son, Rex. “The grassroots effort is the effort that will make change happen. I’m positive of that, and I’m positive of that because in July of 2023, the governor came to my city and signed a bill named after my son — Rex’s Law. We did it for Rex, and we’ll do it for anybody.”

“It has been 13 years of speaking about Hillary,” said Tina Lavoie, who lost her 18-year-old daughter. “Trying to get the seatbelt laws passed and being successful with passing the distracted driving law. What we found is, it’s not getting better on our roads — it’s getting worse.”

These families are now banding together to create the “Stop Road Crashes Advocacy Group.”

Tackling all issues plaguing our roadways, from distracted driving, impaired and reckless driving, jaywalking, and more. It’s all an effort to make our Nevada roadways safer.

“It’s the worst year we’ve ever had,” said Erin Breen, director of the Road Equity Alliance Project. “We’ve lost 83 lives to date, and that still has the possibility of being higher.”

The holiday weekend alone left five people dead on our roadways in a span of 12 hours. As this press conference was going on, there was another fatality Friday near Durango and Charleston.

These are families who now joined the painful club of losing a loved one on one of our Nevada roads.

Ahead of the New Year celebration, a last plead for Nevadans —

“I was one of those people that would see this horrible tragedy on TV,” Lavoie said. “And think, ‘Oh my god, I can’t imagine,’ and you can’t. You can’t put yourself in that position, and you can’t, and we don’t want you to. We don’t want you to know how it feels because it means you’ve lost someone special on our roads.”