Latest news with #Bill359
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Yahoo
Las Vegas driver hit with $417 ticket wants traffic laws changed: ‘When you're retired, that's a lot of money'
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 dcharns@ Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Yahoo
Distracted driver legislation in memory of Anaconda woman sputters in House
A sign warning drivers against distracted driving is near one of the entrances of Billings, Montana. (Photo by Darrell Ehrlick of the Daily Montanan) Four years ago, a young woman, Chloe Worl, was killed shortly before 8 a.m. outside of Dillon by a distracted driver. The other driver, texting on her phone and using Snapchat, slammed Worl's pickup at 60 mph. Worl, who was 25 and working at Barrett Hospital at the time, was killed instantly. The driver who killed Worl avoided jail time for the death. Montana does not have laws making distracted driving illegal, something some lawmakers this session sought to change with Senate Bill 359. Some municipalities, like Helena and Billings, already have distracted driving laws. Signs dot the towns, reminding motorists to look up at the road, not down at their phones. But efforts to bring distracted driving laws statewide have stalled. 'She was an amazing young lady whose life was cut too short, but she's one of many,' said Sen. Sara Novak, an Anaconda Democrat who pushed distracted driving legislation this session. 'This keeps happening.' There were 203 traffic fatalities in 2024, according to the Montana Department of Transportation. That number was less than 200 in 2023. Many of the fatal crashes have been clustered in the southwestern portion of the state. Nationally, fatalities are more common in rural areas than urban, and more than 3,200 people died in crashes caused by distracted driving in 2023. Worl held a degree from the University of Montana Western in molecular biology and had planned to attend the University of Montana's pharmacy school. She was a hunter, an avid horseback rider, a National Honors Society member and musically gifted. Her death shocked not only the Dillon community, but north in Anaconda as well. Worl was a Copperhead, a graduate of Anaconda High School and a four-year softball player. Worl's memory still lives — her family has spoken in favor of legislation seeking to penalize distracted driving and there's even an annual scholarship in her name. 'We've learned a lot since this tragedy has happened to us,' Keith Worl, Chloe's father, said during a Senate Transportation hearing for SB 359 in late February. 'I guess it's also fueled our fire to not have this tragedy happen to anybody else we know.' Chloe Worl's memory lives in Novak's mind too. Novak's Senate Bill 359 would have added penalties for distracted driving. While the session is not over quite yet, the effort has stalled. The legislation passed the Senate, but was tabled in the House Judiciary Committee. Two attempts to blast SB 359, both by legislators from nearby districts, failed during the last two weeks. The first motion to move it to the House floor, by Rep. Jennifer Lynch, a Butte Democrat, failed by one vote with one member, a Democrat, voting remotely. Blast motions can only be voted on by members who are present in the chamber at the time of the vote, and if they would have had that vote on the first motion to reconsider, the legislation likely would have seen the House floor. Rep. Scott DeMarois, a Democrat from Anaconda, brought the second blast motion to move the bill to the floor. It failed by four votes. 'For whatever reason, the stars didn't align,' Novak said. 'It's emotional, it's frustrating.' Novak was Worl's driving instructor, teaching her siblings as well. She was carrying SB 359 for the family and said last week it was her most important piece of legislation this session. 'She was a ray of sunshine,' Novak said. It frustrated Novak, who felt 'politics' played a part in the bill's struggles, but for her the bill not going cuts even deeper. Law enforcement and the state Department of Transportation supported the bill in its committee hearings, but trouble began in the Senate. Asking municipal courts to prosecute the charges was one issue. There was a sense by some legislators it was an attempt by the transportation department to increase revenue by adding penalties. 'I do value life, but this bill usually goes through judiciary,' Sen. Barry Usher, R-Billings, said March 2 on the Senate floor. 'But it seems to me, based on the discussion, that this is about money, because this was pushed, I guess, by the Department of Transportation, because we're losing money.' Comments on her intent were also lambasted by Sen. Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, as a point of decorum during Senate floor discussion. Novak recently said the MDT trying to get more funding wasn't the driver of the bill and made a similar comment on the floor in March. 'In terms of the attacks on MDT and my reasons for bringing this bill, I take exception to that,' Novak said on March 2. 'As this bill sponsor, I did a lot of homework, and I reached out to who I thought would be of interest in this bill.' Novak said there was some conversation about amending the bill to specifically ban texting. But this doesn't go far enough, she said. 'It's more than just texting,' Novak said. A car can travel the length of a football field while glancing at a phone for five seconds at 55 mph. Other messaging apps like Snapchat can be a pull, as can social media, taking photos and changing a song. There has been some appetite in the Legislature to regulate motorists this session, and Bobby's Law, House Bill 267, would create a mandatory minimum for some fatal DUIs in the state. Novak's bill would have made it a $75 ticket on first offense for distracted driving and $150 for subsequent infractions. The intention of Novak's legislation wasn't fully punitive, she said. It's more of creating reminders, so that fewer families will be shattered by a preventable crash, she added. 'We weren't trying to hammer anything with a bunch of heavy fines or create more work for law enforcement,' Novak said in an interview. 'It was more educational and being a deterrent.'
