A “safety zone” is a location on a roadway that was specifically designed for pedestrian use only. A driver in Nevada can typically find these types of zones where pedestrians are usually present.
This would include any school from elementary to high school as well as the campus of the University of Nevada Las Vegas. That campus spans a large area and although its main street is Maryland Parkway it also borders Tropicana and nearly all the way to Flamingo. Swenson is the street that borders the campus on the west side.
The College of Southern Nevada (CSN) which has multiple locations throughout Las Vegas would also be a common place to view a pedestrian safety zone. Their flagship campus is located on West Charleston not far from Bonanza High School and another large satellite campus is on Cheyenne Ave near Interstate 15.
Shopping areas are another common location where safety zones can be present.
Most notable would be Town Square which is located on south Las Vegas Blvd. and Sunset. Downtown Summerlin and the District in Green Valley also have a high density of pedestrians.
Regardless of the location, a safety zone will also be marked with signage indicating what it is and informing drivers not to operate their vehicles in that space.
NRS 484B.110 is the Nevada Revised Statute that associates with safety zones and driving through them. It is a simple NRS and mainly states that driving through a safety zone is not allowed. It simply reads:
No vehicle shall at any time be driven through or within a safety zone.
Whether or not you identify an area on a roadway to be a safety zone as long as it is marked and you enter it you will be in violation of the statute. As it reads, you only have to be within the zone to be breaking the law. Of course, if you drive through it completely then that is an even more egregious offense.
It should not be a surprise to anyone that if you are caught violating NRS 484B.110 and are issued a traffic ticket by law enforcement that there are penalties.
To help mitigate those and to make your life easy, you should reach out to Ticket Busters for any type of traffic ticket, certainly, one involving a safety zone. We have a large staff of legal professionals that will help you find your way through the Nevada court and ticket system. Best of all, we can do most of the work for you.
Penalties for Driving Through or Entering a Safety Zone
If you are caught and issued a ticket for this offense in the city of Las Vegas then you can most likely expect to receive a monetary fine of $305.
That number could be more or less depending on if you are cited in a different city and county.
Oftentimes, if you have a clean record, or at least, are not getting a lot of traffic citations then a prosecutor might cooperate and lessen your charge. Of course, cases vary and it might depend on other things as well but sometimes your charge can be cut down to a non-moving violation.
This is another reason to reach out to Ticket Busters. The legal team will negotiate and try and make a case for your ticket to be reduced.
What Are the Point Penalties for Violating This Statute?
If you are caught driving through a safety zone you can expect to receive four demerit points against your license.
These four points will stay on your driving record for an entire year and will add to any existing points that you currently have.
After the 12-month period of earning the points, they will fall off of your record. If you ever have twelve points at a given time the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will issue a six-month suspension of your driver’s license.
If this happens to you, as a Nevada resident you are able to request a hearing with the DMV to dispute the suspension and this is where having a skilled attorney would be of great help to you.
If you ever do have your license suspended and are caught on the roadways of Nevada it is a misdemeanor charge which means you could be fined up to one thousand dollars and possibly jailed for up to six months.
Do I Need to Attend Traffic School?
You may be wondering about Traffic School and if that is one of the penalties for violating NRS 484B.110.
The answer really depends on the prosecutor working your case as well as the court. Many variables within your particular case could change the outcome and that can include your behavior, driving record, and many other things.
A judge will sometimes enforce a higher fine in lieu of traffic school or vice versa. A driver in Nevada who was issued a traffic ticket may prefer attending traffic school and not because they like it.
Even though it takes more time out of the schedule, attending traffic school are often preferred by some drivers because the violation can get reduced to a non-moving violation. Having a legal professional who is well-versed in Nevada traffic laws can help and they may recommend you make a deal. In this case, it could be negotiated with the prosecutor to cut out traffic school altogether.
In addition to the punishments handed down by the Nevada court system, you will also face other hurdles after receiving a traffic ticket in Las Vegas.
In most cases, your car insurance will increase after getting a ticket. This is why it is so important to fight the charges if you are cited.
Many people simply pay the fine and move on but by utilizing a lawyer from Ticket Busters you can be directed to fight the charge which can possibly get it reduced to a non-moving violation. These types of violations typically do not impact car insurance rates.
Part of your defense may be to request an actual hearing.
How Does a Nevada Driver Go About Making a Defense?
If you hire an attorney from Ticket Busters then they will do this work on your behalf.
It will really depend on what exactly happened so no two instances are the same.
Facts for each individual case will differ and the facts are what the attorney will review to determine the best strategy moving forward.
If you simply drove through a safety zone then it might be a more difficult case to challenge however there are often other details that occurred making a simple case for the prosecution turn into one that is more complex. Examples of complexity in a case could be:
- Was an emergency occurring that forced the driver into the safety zone?
- Was the zone the driver was accused of driving through an actual, marked safety zone?
- Did the driver actually enter the safety zone?
We can look at each of these three items with a little more depth.
If someone has been driving for a long enough time, they will eventually get into a situation where an accident occurs or an accident almost happens. In these situations, a driver must make an ‘on the spot’ decision and sometimes those decisions are not the best ones (in hindsight).
In any case, there is a “sudden emergency doctrine” in the state of Nevada that lets people off the hook for civil liabilities assuming they used reasonable actions to prevent an emergency situation. If something along these lines occurred and if the evidence is provided to a prosecutor they might just drop your case.
Similarly, if you are impeding an emergency vehicle with your only way out being through a safety zone that might be considered a reasonable action to violate this statute.
Sometimes, based on the vantage point of the police officer or due to temporary signage it might be construed that a driver drove through a safety zone even though they actually did not. To prove this, your defense attorney will most likely try and obtain surveillance footage. Eyewitness accounts may also be helpful to your case.
The prosecution would need sufficient evidence to move forward with the charges against you.
You can make these defenses on your own but your best bet would be to hire a skilled traffic attorney from Ticket Busters.
Having private counsel on your side, working for you, is extremely helpful.
Aside from giving you more legitimacy in the court system (so that the District Attorney will take your case more seriously), your counsel will also be able to effectively negotiate the charges against you.
They have experience in doing that whereas the average person does not. Being involved in a court case and dealing with attorneys who are levying charges against you can be quite intimidating and is not for the faint of heart.
Having your own legal help will make you much more comfortable in that process.
