LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — For the last seven months, Annie Houston has longed to see her son Caleb again.
To see his smile in person rather than just through a picture frame.
“All the time I think about that smile on his face. He had the best smile,” Houston said.
Houston vividly remembers the day her eldest son left for work on December 17, 2024. Car issues caused him to take his motorcycle that morning.
Unfortunately, at roughly 6:30 a.m., Caleb was involved in a crash at Durango and Sunset.
Six hours later, Annie learned she had lost her son.
“I saw pictures of a blurred out body on the road. Then I saw a white sheet over the body in the road,” Houston said.
I’m thinking my son is laying on the ground while all these people were complaining that they were late to work.”
Through the grieving process, Houston has come out the other side as a loud voice pushing for better safety measures on the road.
She’s ridden motorcycles for years, recently connecting with nonprofit BikerDown to learn more about how to help motorcyclists at the scene of an accident.
“When I was first riding, one of my girlfriends got into an accident. There was 12 bikes and not one person had a trauma kit and not one person knew how to render proper first aid,” BikerDown founder/CEO Laurie Montoya said.
“Many people all want to get home just like you, so sometimes. Take a pause. We all don’t need to drive so aggressively”
Houston feels strongly about changes to the flashing yellow left turn arrows at several lights in the valley, including at Durango and Sunset where her son was killed.
She also believes there needs to be a strong police presence on surface streets.
“We have plenty of highway patrol on the highways but it’s not the highways that are causing all the issues. It’s all these backroads,” Houston said.
According to Metro Police statistics, there were 159 traffic related deaths in 2024, including 36 involving motorcycles and mopeds.
So far in 2025, the numbers show 88 traffic deaths in Las Vegas, 22 of them tied to motorcycles.
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