Motorists on Oahu were so angered 11 years ago when cameras were used to catch motorists speeding that then-Gov. Ben Cayetano halted the program after just three months and the following Legislature repealed its authorization.
Legislators now are considering a pilot program authorizing cameras to catch drivers running red lights.
Unfortunately, it includes some of the same flaws as the infamous "Talivan" operation and should be rejected.
The "van cam" experiment consisted of a private company’s cameras being operated from white vans parked along Oahu’s freeways. A large problem was that the cameras didn’t reveal the identity of the motorists. It was challenged because the owner of a speeding vehicle was held to blame even if someone else had been driving.
Red-light cameras were introduced to American intersections in the 1980s and are used in nearly 550 communities, including 14 large cities, according to a report last month by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. However, a nationwide trend to abandon the devices has evolved in recent years.
The Los Angeles City Council unanimously parked the effort two years ago because the program was losing $1.5 million a year because 65,000 tickets went unpaid, and the courts refused to force drivers to pay up,essentially rendering the fines voluntary.
Car owners who were sent tickets might not have been behind the wheel when the photo was snapped. Their refusal to pay had no effect on their credit, driving record or insurance.
If Hawaii legislators were to create a three-year pilot program, as proposed, the car’s registered owner would be "forced to choose between accepting responsibility for a violation he did not commit and assisting in the prosecution of a spouse, friend of family member," state Chief Deputy Public Defender Timothy Ho advised a House committee.
Deja vu Talivan and Los Angeles all over again.
Roadway safety is a good goal, of course. But while the L.A. operation was intended mainly to make intersections safe, the city controller reported in an audit that it had not "conclusively shown to have increased public safety."
To the contrary, some studies have shown that red-light cameras increase the number of rear-end collisions as motorists approaching intersections slam on the brakes at high speeds only to be slammed from the rear.
A 2005 Washington Post analysis of crash statistics at 37 intersections in D.C. with cameras in operation showed that the number of crashes at locations with cameras more than doubled from 365 collisions in 1998, to 755 in 2004. Injury and fatal crashes rose by 81 percent while broadside crashes rose 30 percent.
"They are making a heck of a lot of money, and they are picking the motorists’ pockets on the pretense of safety," AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman Lon Anderson told the Post.
That should not be surprising to Hawaii legislators, especially those who were in office during Oahu’s "van cam" wreck more than a decade ago.
The attempt to limit this legislation to Oahu doesn’t diminish the bad memories of that ill-fated project on state highways.
Leave the cameras in their cases, and put the brakes on this bill.
