Las Vegas driver hit with $417 ticket wants traffic laws changed: ‘When you're retired, that's a lot of money'

Yahoo

09-05-2025

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Pay first, fight later: If you get a traffic ticket in Nevada, you have to pay the penalty before you even go to court — $417 later, a Las Vegas couple learned that the hard way.
In January, a Clark County School District police officer pulled over Kim Ferguson for speeding.
'Hi, how are you doing?' the interaction began, according to body-camera video the 8 News Now Investigators obtained. But that quick, friendly greeting later gave Ferguson a not-so-pleasant feeling.
'I said, 'Oh my gosh. I've never had a ticket before. I don't know what to do,'' she said about the stop. Her ticket-free streak ended as the officer cited her for going over the speed limit in a 15-mile-per-hour school zone.
'The reason I'm stopping you is it's a 15-mile-an-hour school zone right now on Spencer,' the officer said. 'You're doing a 31 going through it.'
The officer would lower that speed to 20 for Ferguson's ticket, telling her it would cost several hundred dollars. Ferguson, who said she drives below the speed limit and was following the flow of traffic as it sped up at the end of the school zone, expected a $200 bill.
'We looked on the thing and I told my husband, 'Oh my god, it's $417,'' Ferguson said.
It's $417 a state law requires her to pay, whether she wanted to fight it or not.
'You're going to have to contact the court to pay the fine — if you want to go to court to court to contest it. All the information is right here,' the officer said before driving off.
'When you're retired, that's a lot of money,' said Kim's husband, Tom Ferguson, calling the system a revenue generator. 'Now maybe to some people it's not, but to us it is.'
The Fergusons paid the ticket and said there was no point in fighting it. They added that it would cost more money to hire a lawyer.
'The punishment doesn't match the crime,' Tom Ferguson said. 'If you were doing 50 miles per hour in a school zone, I would understand that, but 20? It doesn't make sense to me.'
It did not make sense to lawmakers either. Since 2021, Nevada lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, have changed most traffic infractions, like a speeding ticket, to be a civil infraction, not a criminal one. That means tickets no longer carry the threat of jail time, and missed court appearances do not really matter in the long run since the court may already have your money.
The way state law is interpreted now: 'The court shall require the person to post a bond equal to the amount of the full payment of the monetary penalty,' means ticketed drivers have to pay in full, no matter what.
'I think the bigger issue, especially among my colleagues here at the Legislature, is just the unfairness in having to pay the fine first and then be seen by a judge,' Democratic State Sen. Melanie Scheible said.
Her proposal, Senate Bill 359, would amend Nevada's traffic-ticket law to give courts flexibility to reduce that bond — that ticket payment.
'For many Nevadans, especially those with limited financial means, this upfront payment creates a financial barrier to their right to a hearing,' Scheible said during a recent legislative hearing. In Kim Ferguson's case, she paid the bond and lost faith in the system.
In addition, changes in Senate Bill 359 would combine civil and criminal infractions — minor speeding offenses versus driving without a license — and allow a judge to deal with both in one hearing.
'We have to continue to develop legislation that still allows for our enforcement agencies to hold people accountable when they violate traffic laws,' Scheible said.
The Fergusons feel the system is a money maker, adding that they paid an additional fee to pay online. Moving forward, Kim Ferguson, who said she always drives below the speed limit, said this was her first and final citation.
'I just go a lot slower now — there's no more tickets,' she said.
The 8 News Now Investigators discovered a potential error on the ticket, leading to questions about the validity of the entire case. The officer who wrote the ticket noted a registration lapse, however, the Fergusons said they always keep up with their payments. A spokesperson for the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles confirmed it did not appear the Fergusons ever had a lapse in coverage.
Scheible's proposal passed unanimously out of the state Senate. It was moving forward in the Assembly and would likely pass in that chamber as well.
8 News Now Investigator David Charns can be reached at [e-mail].
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