A proposal to boost speeding and traffic fines would mostly affect North Dakota's rural areas where the increased penalties would not make for safer roads, the state House concluded in voting down the idea.

Legislation sponsored by Rep. Ed Gruchalla, D-Fargo, sought to simplify North Dakota's Byzantine system of speeding fines with a flat $5 penalty for every mile a motorist is over the speed limit. On two-lane highways, the change would have quintupled the speeding fine for some drivers.

The bill also doubled penalties for other violations such as running stop signs or red lights, failing to yield the right of way, and trying to beat a train at a crossing. The fine for running a stop sign alone would have jumped from $20 to $50.

The House voted 68-21 on Tuesday to defeat the legislation.

Rep. Robin Weisz, R-Hurdsfield, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said the legislation would have stiffened penalties mostly in rural areas. North Dakota's larger cities have home rule authority and set their own fines for speeding and traffic violations, Weisz said.

Although the number of miles traveled in North Dakota's rural areas has increased in recent years, the number of accidents has declined, he said. About half the accidents that do occur are vehicles hitting deer, Weisz said.

"I don't think raising the fines is going to have any effect on whether the deer decide to run across the road or not," he said.

Gruchalla said the basic $20 fine for a moving violation - which covers running a stop sign, failure to yield the right of way, and other offenses - has not been raised since 1956.

"It costs more than $20 to process a traffic citation," said Gruchalla, who is a former highway patrolman. "I think … the person who is violating the law should pay a reasonable amount."

If the fine had kept pace with the Consumer Price Index since 1956, it would now be almost $148, according to an inflation calculator on the Web site of the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At a House Transportation Committee hearing on the bill, its primary supporters were law enforcement officers, who pointed out that there were wide differences in speeding and traffic fines between the state and some of its larger cities. A red-light violation costs $100 in Fargo, $71 in Grand Forks and $50 in Bismarck.

Weisz believes officers in North Dakota's larger cities want an increase in state fines to give them momentum for seeking even higher local traffic penalties.

Cities and counties with home-rule authority, which gives them limited powers of self-government, may keep traffic fines that their law enforcement officers collect. State fines go into a school trust fund.

"The majority of the support that was in this bill came from cities who already have the ability to raise their fines," Weisz said. "It became apparent the reason they wanted the state to raise the fines … was so that they could increase their fines even more, because it was a good source of revenue."

The bill is HB1113.