Seat belt law
Dennis Nolan, a Republican state senator from Las Vegas, has firmly established himself as one of the Legislature’s most aggressive foot soldiers in the war to establish the Nanny State.
It was only six weeks ago that Sen. Nolan was eagerly co-sponsoring a bill that would have made it a crime for anyone younger than 18 years old to ride a bicycle without a helmet.
And this week, Sen. Nolan succeeded in pushing a primary seat belt law through the upper house. That’s been a goal of Nevada Nanny Staters for years, but the proposal has died a quiet death in previous sessions. Not this time.
On Tuesday, Sen. Nolan managed to get a reconsideration of the measure, which failed 13-9 Monday night. After apparently doing a little horse trading, Sen. Nolan moved enough GOP votes to push the bill out of the state Senate, 11-10.
Under current Nevada law, police may issue a seat-belt citation only if they pull over the driver for another violation. A primary seat belt law allows police to stop drivers for the sole violation of not wearing a seat belt.
The great majority of drivers — in Nevada and elsewhere — already wear their seat belts. Primary seat belt laws, in force in about half the states, succeed only in giving police a virtual carte blanche to stop any vehicle on the road at any time under the guise of checking for seat-belt use.
In addition, statistics vary widely in terms of fatalities and compliance among states with or without primary seat belt laws. In 2002, for instance, only one of the five states with the lowest traffic fatality rates per vehicle miles traveled had a primary belt law.
In the end, however, this issue must come down to a matter of personal responsibility and individual liberty, not government coercion.
Which is why the state Assembly should reject Sen. Nolan’s latest effort to drag Nevadans headlong toward the Nanny State he so yearns to impose on the rest of us.