A crash is not an accident: Los Alamos road safety by the numbers
Part 1 in a Boomtown series looking at the data, facts, and experiences of driving in Los Alamos County
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Story and photos by Minesh Bacrania, with additional research by Pippa Fung
Changing the way we think about events and the words we use to describe them affects the way we behave. Motor vehicle crashes occur "when a link or several links in the chain" are broken. Continued use of the word "accident" implies that these events are outside human influence or control. In reality, they are predictable results of specific actions.
Since we can identify the causes of crashes, we can take action to alter the effect and avoid collisions. These are not Acts of God but predictable results of the laws of physics.
George Reagle (1997)
A set of new traffic safety ordinances for Los Alamos County and a flurry of motor-vehicle crashes1 around town in the last two months serve as reminders that the issue of road and traffic safety continues to be a hot-button issue in our community.
For this series, Boomtown independently analyzed data for every crash in Los Alamos County reported to the Los Alamos Police Department from Jan. 1, 2020, to May 2, 2025.
Where are the crashes?
The geographic distribution of these crashes — 629 in total — reveals a rather unsurprising fact: the majority of crashes in Los Alamos occur at the busiest intersections, areas like Diamond Drive and Canyon Road, and various intersections on Trinity Drive and Central Avenue between 20th Street and Knecht Road.
Other areas with a high frequency of crashes include both roundabouts in Los Alamos, as well as NM 502 and Camino Entrada, and NM 4 at both East Jemez Road (a.k.a. the truck route) and Rover Boulevard.
How severe are the crashes?
The State of New Mexico’s standardized reporting system for crashes — the NM Uniform Crash Report — divides crashes into three categories of severity: property-damage only (PDO), injury, and fatality.
Of the 629 reported crashes in Los Alamos County between 2020 and 2025:
472 crashes (75%) were recorded as PDO
152 crashes (24%) were recorded as injury (suspected or observed)
5 crashes (<1%) resulted in a fatality
In 2019, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration “total economic cost of motor vehicle crashes in the United States was $340 billion.” Even minor crashes can, over time, result in enormous economic and social costs such as “medical costs, lost productivity, legal and court costs, emergency service costs, insurance administration costs, congestion costs, property damage, and workplace losses.”
What causes crashes?
The NM Uniform Crash Report presents an array of choices for recording the “contributing factors” of the crash, which are divided into four general categories: driver, environment, vehicle, and roadway.
The factor (or factors) that may have contributed to a crash are determined by police officers tasked with investigating each incident. This is often, but not always, a relatively straightforward process and usually happens quickly.
Analysis by Boomtown showed that for the 629 crashes in this dataset, 511 (81%) were attributed to driver-related factors, primarily driver inattention, driver distraction, and failure to yield.
What about fatalities?
Five people have been killed in crashes on Los Alamos County roads since 2020. Three in 2021, and two in 2024.
On Sept. 20, 2021, Reva Heron, 56, was struck by a vehicle while walking across the intersection of Piedra Loop and NM 4 in White Rock. The 22-year-old driver of the vehicle told police that the sun was shining “directly” into her eyes as she approached the intersection at approximately 20 mph, and that she did not see Heron. The crash report noted that Heron “sustained severe head trauma,” and the driver was cited for careless driving.
On Nov. 10, 2021, Michael Young, 54, lost control of his motorcycle on Diamond Drive near the San Ildefonso roundabout. The police investigation estimated that Young was traveling 94 mph on Diamond Drive when he likely lost control of his motorcycle while braking, prior to entering the roundabout. The crash investigation found that Young was “thrown off the motorcycle” and that he died from traumatic injuries sustained after colliding with a light pole.
Danny Esquibel, a 47-year-old LANL employee, died May 28, 2021 on the truck route near the Los Alamos County Eco Station.
Both 2024 fatalities happened on highways near Los Alamos, with LANL employee Phillip Leonard, 44, dying Feb. 27 while driving the truck route near mile marker 7, and former LANL director Charles McMillan, 69, dying Sept. 6 along NM 502, just east of Los Alamos Airport.
In the three crashes that claimed the lives of Esquibel, Leonard, and McMillan, an oncoming driver crossed a centerline and caused a head-on collision at highway speeds. Though police could not ascertain the exact actions of any of the drivers who caused the crashes, investigations into these three fatal crashes allude to inattention and carelessness by the at-fault drivers as a contributing factor.
Modern vehicles are designed with safety features such as passive and active restraints and crumple zones that attempt to control and distribute the enormous forces that a vehicle and its passengers experience during a crash. These are quite effective for protecting occupants against serious or fatal injuries in low-speed crashes (which account for the majority of crashes in Los Alamos), but it’s virtually impossible to engineer a system that will protect a human in a head-on collision, like the crashes that killed Esquibel, Leonard, and McMillan.
Fatal crashes are rare in Los Alamos, and four of the five fatalities detailed here involved high speeds. What is certain, though, is the impact of these five deaths continue to resonate through our community today.
The road ahead
Los Alamos County has been working to address traffic safety issues through a series of ordinances and budget allocations that specifically target driver inattention and speeding on county roads. The three-pronged approach includes:
A new County ordinance, passed 4-3 by Los Alamos County Council on April 8, to implement “automated speed enforcement measures to enhance existing traffic regulations and improve public safety.”
A new County ordinance, passed unanimously by the council on May 6, to “encourage traffic safety and promote awareness of the risks associated with distracted driving,” which provides for greater enforcement power and increased fines for drivers using handheld mobile devices.
Funding in the 2026 LAPD budget, passed unanimously by the council on April 22, for a dedicated two-officer “traffic and speed” enforcement unit, and for implementing an automated speed camera program.
A look at the data shows that the majority of traffic woes we face in Los Alamos County ultimately stem from the actions of individual drivers. These administrative changes are needed, but likely will not provide an instant solution. Instead, these changes should be the start of a broader effort where we work together, as individuals and as a community, to improve the safety of our roads.
As part of this effort, in the coming months, Boomtown will look at:
The toll these crashes, particularly the fatalities, have taken on families and our community.
The legal challenges in prosecuting at-fault drivers and whether punitive actions act as a deterrent for others.
The longer-term effects of the administrative changes made by Los Alamos County Council in Spring 2025.
On April 8, a Subaru Outback traveling westbound at the intersection of NM 502 and Entrada Place collided with a Ford F-250 pickup truck when the Ford made a left turn in front of the Subaru. The two occupants of the Subaru, both residents of Santa Fe in their 70s, sustained serious but non-fatal injuries. The LAPD investigation is still ongoing, but inattention on the part of the driver of the truck is believed to be a contributing factor.
On April 17, a driver in a Mazda SUV made a left turn in front of an oncoming motorcyclist traveling northbound at the intersection of Diamond and Trinity. The motorcyclist, a resident of Los Alamos, was transported to LAMC with non-fatal injuries. LAPD confirmed that speed was not a factor, and the driver of the SUV was cited for “failing to yield left turn facing a solid green light.”
Only one of those fatal accidents involved exceeding the speed limit. And that wasn't by a small amount that was a deliberate massively excessive speeding event. I am curious how they get such a price size number for the estimated speed of impact..
I find it frustrating and odd that the one solution proposed is to focus on speeding, and of course the financial reward to the county of imposing those speeding fines. Assuming that you could get someone doing 94 miles an hour on a 45 mph Street to change their behavior by speed cameras, you've only solved 20% of the problem.
There is a technological solution that is truly simple. Both the truck route and the main Hill road should have concrete dividers to separate the lanes. Road work is going to be done on highway 4, and I'm hoping that as part of that that there will be a divider installed.
Head-On collisions are at highway speed are very likely to be fatal simply because of the combined speed of the vehicles. Regardless of the reason for crossing over into the other Lane, be it inattention, texting, or medical issue, these barriers reduce the number of vehicles involved in the crash, and reduces the energy involved in that impact by a factor of four ish.
I know the victims in the April 8 accident. One broke both ankles and some ribs, and the other had much worse injuries. She has spent weeks in ICU. The careless truck driver tried to say that the two women were on their cell phones, but that was not true- police confiscated the phones and there was no activity. He turned in front of them and they could not avoid hitting the truck.