It's open season on pedestrians in Las Vegas this year. They have already had more fatalities in the first 3 1/2 months of 2012 than they had all of 2011.

Not a day goes by but there is a news item about a car striking a pedestrian somewhere in the greater Las Vegas area and usually killing them. The accidents don't happen daily, but the stories linger for a few days as the coroner identifies the victims and the police decide whether to press charges.

One especially bad case was where a 78 year-old woman ignored a crosswalk and mowed down several children, killing a couple of them. Then, there was the one about the school bus that ran over one of the students and killed her. The ones where the pedestrian was jay-walking are fairly common, especially near the off-strip casinos, and the police don't have a lot of sympathy for them.

There are crosswalks, of course, but drivers tend to ignore them. Sometimes the Metro police set up a sting operation to catch these scofflaws. They dress up in costumes: turkey at Thanksgiving, Santa suit at Christmas. This is so they are more visible, but the drivers still whiz right by and get ticketed.

I was telling Mr. Troutbend to be more careful and always use the crosswalks, but he pointed out that this year there have been several instances where cars have gone up onto the sidewalks and injured or killed pedestrians.

One of the car on the sidewalk cases was an elementary school teacher who was driving drunk early in the morning, hit a bus shelter with a teenager in it, and he lost both his legs.

I'm sure cell phones and other distracted driving plus drunk or drugged driving all play a part, but not in every case. Nevada recently passed a no hand-held cell phone law, but there are still a lot of people ignoring it, just like they ignore the laws regarding driving drunk.

Really, the only solution is to not be a pedestrian in Las Vegas.

Here are some of the characters on the Strip. You are supposed to pay them for posing for a picture with you.