Police issue more tickets to cars with blue lights
By Brandon Masuoka
Advertiser Staff Writer
Honolulu police are ticketing hundreds of drivers who are violating state law by attaching blue lights to their cars.
From January to April of this year, Honolulu police issued 307 citations to motorists with the blue lights. All of last year, police issued 452 such citations.
State law prohibits anyone from attaching blue-light lamps, reflectors or illumination devices on any motor vehicle, motorcycle, motor scooter, bicycle or moped.
Citations are punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to one year in prison, or both. The law does not apply to factory-installed instrument illumination.
Police said they have noticed a marked increase of blue lights on nonpolice cars this year. They said they have begun citing motorists who have car alarms that emit flashing blue lights to indicate that the alarm systems are activated, and motorists who have blue lights attached inside the grilles of cars, on dashboards or near headlights.
"The law is mainly designed for people not to impersonate police officers," said Capt. Jose Gaytan of the Honolulu Police Department's Traffic Division. "The problem is all these car enthusiasts — they come up with some fads once in a while — and I think that's what it was this year."
Gaytan said most of the violators didn't know about the blue-light law and were not trying to impersonate police, but were only trying to spruce up their cars and "call attention to themselves."
Gaytan said some car shops sell the blue lights, and he called them "novelty kind of stuff." He said it isn't against the law to sell them, just to use them. Police have received "steady" complaints from the community about motorists who use blue lights, but Gaytan said he didn't have a tally.
He said the blue-light complaints have been a concern since the murder of 19-year-old Lisa Au of Kailua who police believed may have been pulled over by a police impostor on Kalaniana'ole Highway near Maunawili Road the early morning of Jan. 21, 1982. Au's body was found on a Tantalus roadside embankment 10 days later.
