Friday, May 20, 2005 | 10:48 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- An Assembly committee approved a bill Thursday that would make it a crime to leave a child in a car alone.
Senate Bill 287 would allow prosecutors to charge an adult with a misdemeanor for leaving a child younger than 7 years old unattended in a car, unless someone at least 12 years old is supervising. Under the amended bill, adults would have to keep children within their line of sight to avoid a ticket.
Also, the conditions would have to present a "significant risk to the health and safety of the child." That could mean that the engine was left running or the keys were left in the ignition.
The Assembly Judiciary Committee passed an amended version of the bill after considerable disagreement on whether the measure, which is designed to protect children, would end up unduly punishing parents. For example, the committee changed the bill so that parents would have to "knowingly and intentionally" leave a child in a car.
The bill came this session after a series of high-profile cases in which children were left in cars unattended and police and prosecutors had little recourse in the law to charge the adults involved.
Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said she doesn't want parents to be punished if they accidentally forget a child in a car. In the summer heat, that can end up a tragedy and the parent's life would already be ruined, she said.
The committee thought about amending the bill so that a parent would get an automatic fine of $100, but the panel decided instead to make the punishment a misdemeanor, which would yield up to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.
The bill, however, still specifies that judges can waive the fine and jail time if parents complete an educational class on the risks of leaving children in cars.
Some legislators worried about including the provision that parents had to intentionally leave children in cars. Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, said she designed the bill to change the mentality in society. Just as people now double check that they put on their seat belt, they should double check on the safety of their children, she said.
"It's supposed to be a wake-up call that you may be placing your child in danger," said Assemblyman William Horne, D-Las Vegas, another sponsor of the original bill.
Also, some legislators pointed out that parents could receive a felony child endangerment charge if they knowingly leave their children in a car.
Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno, said she doesn't want the new misdemeanor to be a charge that people can plead down to so they aren't convicted of the felony child endangerment charge.
She brought up a scenario often discussed in the committee of a person leaving a child in the car while they are inside a convenience store playing video poker. Technically, the child could be in the line of vision, but the parent isn't necessarily supervising the child, several committee members said.
"I think intentionally leaving your child in the car while you're gambling is reckless endangerment of the child," Angle said.
Still, the committee passed the bill unanimously, with several members saying they think it's a step in the right direction to protecting children. It now goes to the Assembly floor.
Another bill, AB 411, discussed Thursday morning in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, would require school districts in the state to have seat belts for children on new school buses that are purchased.
While school buses are designed to ease impact during collisions, Assemblyman Kelvin Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, argues that children can be thrown around "like marbles" in a rollover. He pointed to recent cases in Florida and Missouri where children were tossed around.
"I don't want to look at legislation after something terrible happens," he said.
School district officials testified that the cost to retrofit new buses with seat belts would range between $2,000 and $5,000 per bus. The Clark County School District, for example, buys about 100 buses a year, said its lobbyist, Rose McKinney-James.
But McKinney-James argued that it hasn't been proved that seat belts make children safer. Crash tests are inconclusive, showing that safety belts could do more harm than good if children are whipped around, she said.
Children, she said, are 16 times safer in a school bus than a passenger vehicle. Unlike regular cars, school buses better sustain roll-over accidents, encasing children in compartmentalized areas with high, padded seats, she said.
"Most experts believe that this is superior to seat belts," she said.
She said the National Academy of Sciences has pointed out that unsupervised students might strap in incorrectly, leading to even more injuries.
Only six states require seat belts in buses, according to testimony before the committee.
"The reason why so many states have not gone to seat belts is because they rely on this data, which suggests that they don't add safety," McKinney-James said.
Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said he is concerned, however, about higher speed crashes.
"You've got these young people that literally bounce around inside of that vehicle," he said.
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