In 2025, the number of people killed in car crashes in Nevada decreased. However, in Washoe County, the number increased 26.09%—from 46 to 58, according to a statewide report from the Nevada Department of Public Safety.
Why? Lt. Chad McKinnon, of the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office Major Accidents division, said the major culprit is impaired driving.
“Every year, we try to (take) 5% more impaired drivers off the road,” McKinnon said. “And the past couple of years, we’ve been just crushing that number. I think this year, we were actually up almost 20%. It’s alarming because that’s just the ones that we’re catching. Just with that alone, it shows that there is a problem.”
The 2023 report “Nevada Traffic Safety Crash Facts” by Zero Fatalities Nevada—a coalition formed by the Nevada Department of Public Safety, the Nevada Department of Transportation, Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles, and Nevada Highway Patrol—found that 44% of crash fatalities from 2017 to 2021 were due to an impaired driver.
“A lot of the DUI crashes we get that do involve a serious injury or death—it’s usually a younger-age person,” McKinnon said.
The 2023 report found that men ages 21 to 35 constituted the greatest number of at-fault drivers in fatal impaired driving crashes in Nevada.
“When you’re at that age, you just have that overconfidence,” McKinnon said. “You feel like the world is untouchable at that point, and that’s what I think hurt Washoe County more than anything. I wish that we could get a stronger sentence when someone gets a DUI—a stronger financial burden, some mandatory jail sentence, whatever it is, because I feel like it’s happening more and more now, where people are getting more comfortable thinking that, ‘Oh, I can drive drunk again. I haven’t been caught yet.’”
The report found that men ages 21 to 35 constituted the greatest number of at-fault drivers in fatal impaired driving crashes in Nevada. “When you’re at that age, you just have that overconfidence,” McKinnon said.
During the special session last November, the Nevada Legislature passed the Safe Streets and Neighborhoods Act (Assembly Bill 4). The bill increased sentence lengths and other penalties for both first and second DUI offences.
“We’re thankful that there are harsher penalties for DUI repeat offenders and for people who cause substantial injury or death,” McKinnon said. “We’re hoping that we can continue to get (the laws) changed and make it even more strict to keep these people from recurring.”
McKinnon said that speeding is another factor in a lot of car-related deaths. Speeding accounted for 30% of them in Nevada from 2017-2021.
“That’s why sometimes we’re thankful for the increased traffic, because it does slow everybody down,” he said.
Finally, 21% of Nevada’s total fatalities from 2017-2021 involved people not wearing seatbelts. Said McKinnon: “That’s another thing, just like DUIs—it blows my mind if it’s not second nature to anyone getting in a car, that as soon as you get in, you buckle up.
“The big thing to put out there is please, always, always wear a seatbelt. That is the first thing you can do to save everyone in your car’s lives, including yourself. The second thing is drunk driving’s got to stop. You know, you’ve got to be the person who makes the better decision and says, ‘What if that was my family that got hurt from someone doing something that I could prevent?’ If you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes … I think that’s the only way you can ever start to make a difference.”