Las Vegas Police will No Longer Respond to Non-Injury Traffic Accidents, starting on March 3, 2014. With police no longer responding to non-injury traffic accidents, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department estimates this will “free up” 250 hours a week to allow officer to perform other duties. Capt. Mark Tavarez of Metro’s Traffic Bureau points out that there are currently 30 fewer traffic officers compared to 18 months ago, and that metro wants to shift their focus from minor non-injury traffic accidents, to more serious injury accidents.
Las Vegas Police are now instructing individuals involved in a non-injury traffic accident, to exchange insurance driver’s license information, and within 10 days, fill out an accident report, and then forward said report to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles.
This move can be a good thing and certainly a bad thing depending on the situation you are involved in. If an individual is rear ended by another, and not injured, and the other party is clearly at fault, admits that they are, and is helpful in exchanging information, I really don’t see a problem. The parties involved can contact their insurance carrier and be walked through the process.
Unfortunately, that scenario is not typical of a traffic accident. Many times, one or both parties can be hostile, confrontational and argumentative, which could potentially lead to violence and in my opinion an increase in insurance fraud and hit and run incidents. For years scammers have committed insurance fraud by creating fake or planned accidents and then reporting them to their insurance carrier, which in turn would be required to pay out any property or personal damage depending on the coverage. With no independent party such as a police officer to record details of the scene and determine at his in his or her opinion who is at fault, there is no barrier to this type of insurance fraud. Which in turn leads to higher insurance rates for everyone.
Lastly, now that Las Vegas police will no longer respond to non-injury traffic accidents, many drunk drivers will go undetected and if cooperative with the other party will simply exchange their information then head back into their car while under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. This is turn could lead to more DUI related injuries and deaths.
-Michael A. Troiano, Esq.
sources: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014/feb/24/metro-give-responding-minor-traffic-accidents-begi/
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/metro-stops-responding-non-injury-crashes-march-3
