Nevada Highway Patrol busy over Labor Day weekend

By Chuck Allen, NHP
The Labor Day holiday weekend produced a high volume of traffic on northern Nevada highways resulting in a large number of calls for service. During the three-day weekend, nineteen people were arrested in the Reno-Sparks area with fifteen of those arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Troopers assigned to the Carson City area logged 3 DUI arrests. The DUI arrest activity for Lovelock, Fernley, Fallon and Hawthorne was not available this morning.
One of the DUI arrests resulted from a two-vehicle injury crash on State Route 445 at the intersection of Los Altos on Sunday morning around 7:00 am. The other DUI arrests stemmed from traffic enforcement stops where speed, failing to maintain a travel lane, or following another vehicle too closely were noted as the moving violations on the arrest reports.

A total of 47 accidents, including the DUI-related crash in Spanish Springs, were investigated over the weekend as well. Thirteen of those crashes had some type of injuries reported while the other thirty-four were property damage only. Two of the accidents which took place on Monday had a direct impact on the flow of traffic on Interstate 80 resulting in one or more lanes of the freeway to be blocked. At around 11:15 am, a SUV towing a camper trailer jackknifed near the Robb Drive interchange ultimately blocking both westbound travel lanes for just over an hour. None of the four passengers riding in the SUV were injured and the 21-year-old driver, who only possessed a driver’s instruction permit, was cited for failing to use due care. The other accident happened around 12:10 pm on eastbound Interstate 80 near the Virginia Street exit. Two vehicles were involved in a rear-impact collision in that event were blocking at least one travel lane in the construction zone resulting in 3 of the 6 involved motorists to sustain claimed or very minor injuries
Troopers also assisted 404 motorists with disabled vehicles on our area highways with a majority of those calls taking place on Interstate 80 and State Route 447 between Wadsworth and Gerlach. Flat tires, broken radiator and heater hoses, fan belts and running out of fuel were some of the common mechanical failures in these calls for service.