Some of our local law enforcement agencies are cracking down on pedestrian safety in our area.

According to a national report, Nevada intersections are the sixth most dangerous in the country.

The study is from a personal injury law firm, Injured in Florida and the research data comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 2017 to 2021. 

The study reports that between those years, Nevada has seen 393 fatalities, with 100 of those happening in intersections.

According to the Zero Fatalities report during that same time period, 65 people died in Washoe County intersections. 

The Nevada Office of Traffic Safety and the Reno Police Department are doing what they can to crack down on these crashes and deaths.

"In our state and really across the country, we've seen pedestrian fatalities go up significantly here in Nevada, over 40 percent in the last five years," said Todd Hartline, Law Enforcement Liaison for the Nevada Office of Traffic Safety. 

Over the course of December, the Reno Police Department (RPD) held a pedestrian and school zone safety operation.

During that, the department handed out 104 traffic citations, four warning, and made three DUI arrests.

RPD received a grant from the Office of Traffic Safety for this operation.

Hartline said with more deaths occurring with pedestrians over the years, work like this is important.

"Anytime that happens, and they can be out there, and they can be out there enforcing these laws, like what it means to us is it's saving lives," he claimed. "We get impaired drivers off the road. We get people that are speeding in school zones off the road, or they get citations where they get driving behavior."

For safety with drivers, Hartline said they need to remember to yield to pedestrians and to not speed.

"The people behind the wheel you got to slow down," he said. "Speeding has really increased our crashes and our fatal crashes in our state, and they also contribute to the pedestrian fatalities."

However, there's one method that Hartline thinks works best for both worlds.

"The biggest and most important one in my opinion is to make eye contact with the driver," Hartline said. "If you're a pedestrian, you need to make sure that the driver sees you out there and likewise if you're a driver. You want to make sure the pedestrian sees you."