We have measured the radiative lifetimes of 33 levels of Pr II and 13 levels of Nd II using two variants of the beam-laser method. The levels studied had term energies up to similar to30 000 cm(-1) and lifetimes in the range 6-170 ns. Experimental accuracy was in the range 1-11% . We have used these lifetimes to update transition probabilities for 82 transitions in Pr II in the wavelength range 392-640 nm, which are useful for stellar abundance determinations.