An elderly pedestrian was killed in a hit and run by a drunk driver on Friday evening. The driver, 35-year-old Las Vegas man Peter Mitchel, struck a 69-year-old man who was attempting to cross Stober Boulevard around 6:30 pm. Mitchel returned in his Jeep to the scene about an hour later and was arrested.
“This is the fourteenth fatality on the Las Vegas streets this year,” reports Las Vegas auto accident attorney George T. Bochanis. “Pedestrians and drivers alike both need to remain vigilant to the risks of injury or death, especially when caused by drunk drivers.”
Mitchel will face charges of driving under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident. A 39-year-old passenger in his vehicle was not injured in the accident.
The victim was transported to University Medical Center, where he was declared dead. He was not using a marked crosswalk at the time of the accident. The family of the victim may have cause to contact a Las Vegas auto accident attorney to recover damages from the drunk driver.
Recent studies by the National Highway Transportation Safety Association show that two factors put Las Vegas pedestrians at especially high risk of death by a drunken driver. First, 40% of pedestrian fatalities in 2013 involved a driver under the influence of alcohol. Second, a quarter of Nevada’s traffic fatalities from this year were pedestrians, compared to less than 15% nationally.
The elderly man’s death adds to some frightening statistics for 2016. In Clark County alone, fatalities are up nearly 20% compared to this same time in 2015, continuing a trend of increased fatality accidents that began in 2011. For the entire state of Nevada, there were 10% more fatalities recorded in 2015 when compared to the previous year.
This is the second hit-and-run in Las Vegas in a week. Last Sunday a toddler was struck and killed by Daniel García-Martinez. He was arrested later in the week and will face a felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident involving death, among other charges.