Las Vegas considers stronger regulations on exotic car rentals
By Drew Andre
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LAS VEGAS (KVVU) — An alarming number of fatal crashes in Clark County involve rented luxury or exotic cars, according to new data from the state.
The Department of Traffic Safety determined eight to 12% of fatal crashes in the Clark county are at the hands of rented exotic cars.
“if there is a simple solution, which an ordinance may be that solution to eliminate those 12 fatalities from happening this year let’s do it today,” Andrew Bennett with the Nevada Department of Traffic Safety said.
This is an issue specific to Las Vegas with lots of tourists that come into town and want to rent a fast car.
There are several examples this year that FOX5 has reported on. In September a Connecticut police officer crashed a rented Rolls Royce. He is accused in the deadly DUI.
In June police said a man drove a rented Lamborghini over 140 miles per hour before hitting and killing another man on a moped.
“We’re trying to prevent these short term luxury rental cars from becoming a fatality machine,” Bennett said.
LVC Exotic Car Rentals manager Ed Balaoro reacted to new traffic data. He said he was surprised to hear of how many fatalities involving the specialty rental cars there have been.
“Luckily we haven’t had a major accident with a car in our agency, but we do see the stories on the news and it is scary,” Balaoro said. “It just makes us work harder to make sure all of our clients are safe.”
The luxury car rental company already uses safety measures that are not required. They track all of their cars speed and location. If a car is excessively speeding they will notify the driver and can ultimately choose to revoke their privileges.
Balaoro showed the GPS board that they always have up in the office.
That’s one of the recommendations the state brought to the county commissioners, Tuesday. Bennett said there’s technology that can solve this issue to prevent speed and impairment.
“The second one we’ve been talking about with the industry is the implementation of dash cameras,” Bennett said. “Knowing someone’s watching your behavior can significantly reduce making that dangerous decision.”
Governors on speed for the rentals has been considered before, but Balaoro said it’s not something that’s as feasible as it seems.
“Tampering with the electrical system on these cars isn’t the best idea. It might short something, and that might cause one of the safety features on the car to fail,” Balaoro said.
This would only apply to exotic or luxury rental cars. The data the Office of Traffic Safety looked at is just cars with over 500 horsepower. To put that in perspective a regular car is about 200 or less horsepower.
An ordinance by the county is expected to be drafted in the early part of next year.
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