Speeding margin near 6 mph, records suggest

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

The threshold for speeding citations under the state's new traffic photo enforcement system appears to be 6 miles per hour over the posted limit, according to an analysis of court records.

Up to now, state transportation officials have neither confirmed nor denied that such a threshold exists.

They have insisted that the camera program does not have a zero tolerance policy, but for legal reasons they have repeatedly said that anyone going over the posted limit could be "subject to a citation."

The state's refusal to say whether or not there is a threshold has contributed to a firestorm of criticism, especially from drivers who worried that they could receive a citation, and thus see their auto insurance rates go up, for driving as little as 1 or 2 mph over the limit.

•	Traffic-camera briefing slated The state Senate Committee on Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations plans to hold a briefing on the traffic photo enforcement program this afternoon. Department of Transportation officials have been asked to appear before the committee to discuss the implementation of the project. The meeting is at 2 p.m. in Room 229 of the state Capitol.

The court records, however, show that a majority of the citations have been for autos going at least 9 mph or more over the limit. The lowest citation was for a driver going 41 mph in a 35-mph zone; the highest went to a driver accused of going 86 mph in a 55-mph zone, or 31 mph over the limit.

"I feel a little better knowing that they won't tag me for doing 5 miles per hour over the limit," Scott Medeiros of 'Aiea said when he heard the news last night. "I'd feel even better if I thought it was 10 miles per hour."

The figures, obtained from the District Court on O'ahu, which will handle all the new speeding cases, are based upon 1,219 citations issued in the first two weeks of the program, from Jan. 2 to12.

"I'm glad to learn that they are using a threshold," said Michael Kam, a former deputy city prosecutor and now an attorney specializing in traffic law. "It would have been stupid for them to bring cases into court for anything less. The judges generally throw anything out that's less than 5 mph over the limit.

"I think 10 mph is a magic number," Kam said. "In the past, the unwritten rule was that police would not write a citation unless you were doing 15 mph over the limit, but I've heard that has dropped recently. It's probably in the 10 mph range, too."

The state's courts are gearing up to handle a large number of people expected to challenge their photo citations in court, said judiciary spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa.

The first cases are scheduled to be heard in District Court on Feb. 19. More than 400 registered owners who received their citations in the first three days of the program can choose to tell their side of a story to the judge on that day, Kitagawa said.

So far, only a relative handful of people are paying their fines promptly, Kitagawa said.

Among the recipients of 1,551 citations issued up to Jan. 18, only 158 or 10.18 percent have paid their fines so far. Another 41 owners returned written explanations of why the citations were unfair.

Seventy owners, including car rental companies, have sent in declarations saying they were not the driver of the car at the time of the violation.

Fines for speeding violations begin at $27 plus $5 per mile over the limit if paid promptly. Under that formula, a driver doing the threshold speed, 6 mph over the limit, would have to pay a fine of $57. The driver caught doing 86 mph in a 55-mph zone faces a fine of $182.

Kam said he thinks many vehicle owners will choose to fight their citations in court. He thinks the citations could be particularly vulnerable because they refer to state statute 291C102, which applies to vehicle "operators," while the citations are being issued instead to vehicle owners.

"Everyone should fight it," he said. "If you get a couple of tickets your insurance is going to go up, and who can afford that?"

Also yesterday, the state released the latest figures of citations issued. The numbers show that from Jan. 14 to 18, the cameras checked 24,306 vehicles at various locations on state highways on O'ahu, found 2,056 or 8.4 percent of them going over the limit and issued 774 citations, amounting to about 3.1 percent of those checked.

Those figures were up slightly from the first two weeks of the program when about 5.4 percent of the drivers were seen speeding and fewer than 2 percent received citations.