By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
None of the reported traffic accidents along a heavily traveled section of a road in the southern part of the county over the past four years were caused by poor visibility, county commissioners court members have learned.
Val Verde County Commissioners Court members during their June 3 meeting heard the results of an accident study conducted by the county attorney’s office. The study area was a portion of Cienegas Road south of the Del Rio city limits where County Commissioner Pct. 4 Gustavo “Gus” Flores is requesting the installation of several new streetlights and the upgrade of several other lights.
County Attorney David Martinez presented the results of his study during another discussion of the streetlights being requested by Flores. Flores has repeatedly framed the need for the new and upgraded streetlights along Cienegas Road as a safety issue.
During the June 3 discussion of the lights, Commissioner Pct. 3 Fernando Garcia asked Martinez about the results of the study, which the court had requested earlier this year, and the court paused its discussion so the county attorney could share the results.
Martinez took the podium and told the court, “My office was tasked to work with the sheriff’s office (to conduct the accident study). The sheriff’s office has, basically, jurisdiction outside the city limits because this section of Cienegas Road is all outside the city limits, so, obviously, there’s an easy way to track accidents that occur on any section of this county road because the sheriff’s office is the entity that would investigate those incidents or those accidents.”
Martinez said his office examined traffic accidents reported to the sheriff’s office between Dec. 24, 2021, and Jan. 6, 2026.
Martinez said, “We looked at that section of Cienegas Road pertinent to these lights because of the insinuation that there were a lot of accidents because of the darkness. During that time period, there were 29 reported accidents on this section of Cienegas Road.
“Of the 29 accidents, 19 of them occurred during the daytime, so clearly, lighting was not an issue. Of the remaining 10, not a single report indicated that visibility or darkness were a cause of the accident. Most of them, to be honest, were speed, DWIs, and I think there were two incidents where a deer crossed the road,” Martinez told the court.
Martinez added, “But none of them indicated, in the ‘contributing factors’ section of the accident report, that visibility or lighting contributed to the accident, and this is just a neutral investigation that my office conducted, along with the sheriff’s office.”
Flores said, “Something very important, David, is that those areas are growing. A lot of people are moving over there, Vega Verde, Cienegas, Chaparral, I mean, it’s just a heavy traffic road, plus, a lot of those accidents were not reported. The sheriff’s (office) doesn’t catch all of them.”
Martinez said, “All I can do, obviously, report on those that were reported, but those that weren’t reported, we have no idea.”
Flores added, “There are five school bus stops on Cienegas Road. I guess those are not important to you guys.”
“You can’t make those blanket statements,” Martinez responded.
Owens added, “That is just not a fair statement. I have voted for these lights twice, but that is just not a fair statement. I think all of us are concerned about our students. All of us are concerned about safety. All of us have a concern, whether it’s in our precinct or not, or the whole county. There is a question on the floor right now, though, as to where the lights are, the placement of them and which lights are what.”
The court then continued its discussion of whether or not the streetlights are needed and why three members of the court have repeatedly opposed the requests for their installation.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
