CARSON CITY -- Motorists might find themselves a little lighter in the wallet but a bit safer on the road if two measures sought by a Nevada law enforcement group become law next year.
The Nevada Sheriffs and Chiefs Association wants to make not wearing a seat belt a primary offense, and the group also wants authority to use traffic cameras to catch red-light runners.
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Both proposed bill drafts have been considered before by the Legislature without success.
Automated traffic cameras are illegal in Nevada under legislation adopted in 1999. And a ticket for failing to use a seat belt can now be written only if a motorist is pulled over for some other offense first.
Douglas County Sheriff Ron Pierini, past president of the law enforcement group, said both measures are aimed at saving lives.
The red-light camera proposal would allow for a pilot project to determine how well such enforcement tactics would work at reducing traffic fatalities, he said. The idea isn't so much to issue citations but to make people aware of cameras at certain intersections to stop red-light running, Pierini said.
Public concerns over cameras taking pictures of vehicles and questions about determining who is actually behind the wheel when an offense is captured by cameras have tripped up the proposal in past legislative sessions, he said.
"We ask how you can say no to a program that will stop people from getting hurt," Pierini said.
Kimberly McDonald, a lobbyist for the city of North Las Vegas, said city officials pushed hard for the traffic camera proposal in 2005, only to see it go down to defeat in the last days of the session. The city supports the idea of a pilot project using traffic cameras to reduce vehicle deaths, she said.
Pierini said the seat belt proposal is being sought because it too would save lives.
"It's very frustrating from a law enforcement perspective to see a motorist who is not wearing a seat belt and not having the ability to do anything about it," he said.
Some lawmakers see the proposal as government going too far in telling people what to do.
But Pierini said law enforcement officials see the aftermath of accidents in which lives were lost because seat belts were not used.
According to the group Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, more than half the states have secondary enforcement laws relating to the use of safety belts. The group, which supports primary safety belt laws to protect motorists from drunken drivers, said usage rises by several percentage points under the tougher primary laws.
But Nevada, with its secondary law, is ahead of most states in seat belt usage, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Nevada was ranked No. 3 in the nation in 2005 for seat belt use at 94.8 percent, according to the agency. Hawaii, at 95.3 percent, and Washington, 95.2 percent, were the only states with higher seat belt usage.
Erin Breen, director of the UNLV Safe Community Partnership, said both proposals would help save lives in Nevada and should be supported by the Legislature.
"It's safe to say we're in the top 10 states in the nation, per capita, in red-light running deaths," she said. "People who live here have had it with the total disregard for traffic laws."
Breen said the best way to implement a traffic camera system is to make the penalty an administrative one with no points on a person's license. To treat it as a regular moving violation would require a photo of the driver, which is what most people object to, she said. As an administrative fine of say, $100, only a photo of the license plate is required, Breen said.
Any pilot study of a traffic camera system would do the most good if it focused on the top 20 intersections for fatalities in Southern Nevada, she said.
And while Nevada has a high level of compliance with the seat belt law, unbelted drivers still make up a big percentage of traffic deaths statewide, she said. More than 50 percent of the fatal crashes in Nevada involve unbelted drivers, which shows that those who do not buckle up are more likely to die in a crash, Breen said.
Assemblyman John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, who had the traffic camera bill introduced in his Transportation Committee on behalf of North Las Vegas in 2005, said he sees both sides of the issue.
"I think you have to weigh two factors," he said. "One is public safety, and the folks in law enforcement think the cameras would help make intersections safer.
"I don't necessarily disagree, but the other side thinks about the 'Big Brother' mentality of watching our every move. They don't like that, but we're filmed everywhere else these days: in casinos, in elevators, in the local 7-Eleven."
Most people feel strongly one way or the other, and they cannot be convinced to change their minds, Oceguera said.
Pierini said the backing of the Nevada Sheriffs and Chiefs Association might help get the measures approved in 2007.
