Sunday gathering honors road traffic victims

Since nearly being killed while riding his bicycle on Elks Drive in 2020, Jim Toth’s recovery has been slow-going. A 17-year-old driver struck Toth, leaving the avid cyclist with a broken back, a head injury and other damage, lying by a roadside just two blocks from his home.

His spouse, Barbara Toth, said Jim regained his ability to walk and even to ride his bike, but said life with a spinal cord injury, at age 72, has not gotten easier. She also attributed some memory issues and other difficulties to the head wound he sustained in the crash. “We are lucky that he is still alive,” she said, “and yet his life was still changed so dramatically.”

The driver was never cited, Toth said.

“On Sunday, the nonprofit she founded, Vulnerable Road Users New Mexico, joins the bicycling advocacy nonprofit Velo Cruces to observe World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. The agenda includes an afternoon “walk/ride/run” event at the First Christian Church on El Paseo Road followed by a sunset candlelight vigil at Las Cruces High School.

“Our organization is very purposefully called ‘Vulnerable Road Users,’” Toth said, “Any and all of us are vulnerable at any point in time when we're using our roadways, but the legal terminology for vulnerable road users is those who lack the protection of a vehicle around them. So they are bicyclists, pedestrians, runners, children, playing, people on horseback, any number of things that lack the protection of a car or truck around them.”

Part of the organization’s work is talking with student drivers about distractions at the wheel, most of them involving mobile phones but including handling food and drink while driving, talking to passengers and adjusting radio volume.

“My message with those students is, please don't make choices behind the wheel that endanger your life or endanger the lives of other persons,” Toth said.

Participation in Sunday’s walk/ride/run event is free and open to the public, gathering at the church, 1809 El Paseo near the high school, beginning at 2:15 for a 3:15 start. State Rep. Angelica Rubio, D-Las Cruces,

At 4:45 p.m., Las Cruces High’s 3-M Music Honor Society will host the candlelight vigil near the athletic parking lot, off Boutz Road. They will also stage a ceremony in memory of graduates Lucas Mitchell and Victoria McFarland, who were killed in a July 4 crash, per a news release.

The rate of traffic fatalities in New Mexico in 2023 were 12.7 percent lower than the previous year, per U.S. Department of Transportation data; but at 407 deaths, the state still saw 1.46 deaths per 100 vehicle miles traveled. That was higher than neighboring states Texas and Colorado, but lower than Arizona, which had 1,315 deaths in 2023, or 1.69 fatalities per 100 VMT.

The two Las Cruces organizations are advocating for solutions modeled on the Vision Zero program enacted in Albuquerque, including crosswalk infrastructure, bike lanes and center turning lanes, as well as a “complete streets” ordinance codifying street design for all users, including non-vehicular.

In a written statement, Velo Cruces president Donald Wilson said, “We stand with VRUNM in calling attention to the public health epidemic of traffic violence and implore our elected officials to declare in one voice that this is no longer acceptable and that we must do better so that all of us in the greater Mesilla Valley can move safely around our communities.”