DRIVE TIME
Life in fast lane isn't picture-perfect
| • | The basic questions |
| • | The critical questions |
| • | How the speeding program works |
| • | Where the cameras are |
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer
What's all the fuss? Nothing, it seems, has galvanized the Hawai'i public more in recent years than these traffic cameras. Not the Bishop Estate mess. Not same-sex marriage. Not even beating BYU.
These cameras are on TV. They're on the front page of the newspaper. They're sure as shootin' all over talk radio, where you'd never know there was a war or a recession going for all the talk about what started out as a simple effort to get drivers to slow down.
The cameras are changing us. They're making us talk to one another. They're making us shout at some people. They're making us question who we are, where we're going and how fast we need to get there. They may even be making us slow down.
Why are people so upset? Take your pick.
Is it because the cameras represent the next step in Big Brotherism? Is it because insurance rates are going up? Due process? Invasion of privacy? Unfair treatment? The fines? The marriage of big government and big business? The loss of the fine art of talking your way out of a ticket?
Or is it that over the years we've just gotten used to living life in the fast lane in Hawai'i, and we don't like being told to slow down? It's as if somebody said no more Costco, Circuit City and Waikele anymore; you have to go back to doing all your shopping at Gibson's again. It's like Larry Price instead of June Jones coaching the football team. It's like someone saying you can only listen to old-style slack-key music, no more of this Jawaiian and hip-hop stuff.
Whatever it is, we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. Or maybe we will.
Maybe we're going to have to accept these cameras as just one more step along the way to acknowledging that Hawai'i is more and more like the rest of the country, a place full of angry, always-on-the-run, left-lane kind of people.
We've seen the cameras and don't like them; the cameras have seen us and we don't like what they show.
Mike Leidemann writes about transportation issues. Reach him at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5460.
