A pedestrian was left with critical injuries early Friday after being struck by a car near Rancho and Teddy drives, close to Sahara Avenue and Interstate 15 in central Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department shut down both directions of traffic in the area as officers responded to the scene.
The crash involved a car and a pedestrian, according to FOX5 Las Vegas, which first reported the closure early Friday morning. Police had not said whether speed or impairment played a role in the collision as of the outlet’s initial report. The closure affected both northbound and southbound lanes near Rancho and Teddy drives while officers worked the scene.
A Corridor Already Under Scrutiny
This is not the first time this stretch of central Las Vegas has made headlines for a pedestrian being hit. Just weeks earlier, on August 14, emergency crews and police responded to a separate vehicle-versus-pedestrian collision at West Sahara Avenue and South Rancho Drive that forced the closure of eastbound lanes and sent a patient to the hospital with injuries, the outlet’s report at the time noted. That crash came less than a month before Friday’s incident at the same general intersection.
The area has seen a string of serious crashes in recent months. Hoodline previously reported on a deadly crash near Desert Inn and Paradise that critically injured a pedestrian, and on a fatal pedestrian crash on Charleston Boulevard near Rancho Drive in late August. In March, a driver fled after a fatal hit-and-run struck a pedestrian on Rancho Drive between Vegas Drive and Washington Avenue, a case investigated by LVMPD’s Collision Investigation Section.
Ongoing Roadwork Along Rancho Drive
The crash site sits within a $30 million mobility and road improvement project that the City of Las Vegas and the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada began in February on Rancho Drive between Sahara Avenue and Charleston Boulevard, according to the City of Las Vegas. The project has introduced 24-hour lane restrictions while crews build new sidewalks, landscaped medians, and LED streetlights along the corridor. Whether construction-related lane restrictions or lighting conditions played any role in Friday’s collision has not been addressed by police…