Cameras lit fuse on anxiety arsenal
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer
Maybe we all need to just calm down and stretch out on the psychiatrist's couch.
Amid the continuing threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan, the collapse of Enron, monetary meltdown in Argentina, the global search for Osama bin Laden, and economic burnout on the home front, one crisis looms large above all others:
The invasion of the traffic cameras.
Why are people so upset?
In Hawai'i no other subject ranks before it. On the street, throughout the workplace, inside elevators, at watering holes and around the dinner table it has become conversation topic numero uno.
Since cameras in vans started popping snapshots and the state began sending out citations at the beginning of the month, the storm of indignation has escalated. Average citizens, cops, and stern-faced politicians have weighed in, calling the Department of Transportation program everything from just plain mean to unconstitutional or worse.
The subject has captured our thought patterns, clogged our e-mail systems and commandeered our airwaves. It is out of control on O'ahu talk radio shows. Last week, KHVH afternoon drive-time host Mike Buck attempted to restrict calls about traffic cameras.
He didn't pull it off.
"I've got better things to talk about than this," a frustrated Buck told one caller. "It's grinding on us."
After the show Buck said, "I've been doing this for years, I know how to steer the conversation, I know how to guide. None of that's working now. I've got Mayor Harris' campaign contributions, a $30,000 commission for the governor's official portrait going to an out-of-state artist, and 82 dogs in a house on Maui.
"I get two calls about that and 300 about traffic cameras."
Buck says the griping has arrived in three phases, each lasting about a week. First, came a wave of "knee-jerk reactors," who were incensed about the program in general.
That was followed by a "loophole bunch," who concocted endless, and frequently loony, schemes to circumvent the law or evade detection.
"Finally, we have the ones who've really figured out that it's all a money grab by the state and they resent it," he said.
Little ire has been aimed at the idea of stationary cameras being used to catch red light runners.
Many motorists concede that something needed to be done to slow down those who regard the freeway as their private raceway.
There are even those who claim they are in favor of the speed vans owned by ACS, the private, $2 billion Mainland firm that has a three-year demonstration program contract with the state Department of Transportation. But for every one in favor there seem to be 10 who find the program revolting and don't mind saying so vociferously.
Advertiser editorial page editor Jerry Burris says no other issue has generated so much mail so fast — 95 percent of it negative.
"Same-sex marriage may have come close, but that was over a longer period of time," he said. "The question is, 'Why?' "
Some have suggested that Hawai'i's overwhelming, volatile reaction to traffic cameras could be an example of mass hysteria.
But if everyone is madder than hell, does that necessarily mean they are all delusional?
"It isn't mass hysteria," said Patricia Steinhoff, a University of Hawai'i professor of sociology who specializes in collective behavior and social movement. "But there is a certain irrationality to it."
Steinhoff sees a connection between anger over speed vans and the events of Sept. 11. She says we have lately become conscious of our civil rights and apprehensive about the government taking measures that might curb them. Meanwhile, there is a growing anxiety surrounding the swirl of volatile world events.
Those issues "are in our face because they are in the news," she said. "But, they're distant. People feel as though they can't do anything about them."
Thus, concludes Honolulu systems psychologist Wayne Giancaterino, the state could not have picked a worse time to impose what he calls "a cold, exacting" program.
The reason public wrath toward traffic cameras comes off as irrationality bordering on mass hysteria is because our collective unconscious mind is still reeling from the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Giancaterino said.
"It's a trigger," he said. "We have this free-floating anxiety still from Sept. 11. And this is more than just a convenient target. To our unconscious perception — in a very emotional way — this is itself an act of terrorism."
Giancaterino says people find it fundamentally disturbing that machines (laser beams and cameras, in this case) are regulating human conduct. They react to such a development on a deep psychological level.
Ira Rohter, a UH professor of political science who specializes in Hawai'i politics, agrees.
What may be at the heart of the speed camera phenomenon could be symbolic politics — the idea that issues with the most impact are those that evoke powerful emotions sparked by prior associations and experiences.
"When you look at symbolic politics you ask yourself, 'What is it that people are really angry about," said Rohter. "They are mad about government intruding into their lives. They feel like they are under 100 percent surveillance."
Part of it is bigness, he said. Big Brother running amuck; big government and big corporations conspiring together to mess with our minds. So sneaky vans with cameras capturing our driving habits on film become an affront over which to get emotionally riled.
Rohter says people have a sense that the state is out to get them by taking advantage of America's slowest freeway speeds and by hiding speed vans near off ramps and other locations where it's tough to obey limits.
Unlike large, global crises, there is a common feeling that this one local concern is something people can do something about because so many of them are screaming at once.
Furthermore, he says it might work.
"You know, these minor issues can suddenly become a lightning rod," he said. "This is hot. Everybody's running for office again. I think politicians are going to run away from this really fast.
"I mean, look how they ran away from same-sex marriage."
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.
