Posted on: Tuesday, January 21, 2003

EDITORIAL
Don't expect welcome for red-light van cams

Last year's van cam debacle might have poisoned the well for any new bills to nab traffic offenders. But we should keep an open mind about a legislative proposal to target those pesky red-light runners.

State Sen. Cal Kawamoto and Rep. Joe Souki want to bring back a traffic camera program, but only for red-light runners. But let's do it right this time.

First of all, the proposal will need a lot of public input. The state Department of Transportation circumvented that process last time around and trotted out an ill-conceived program that infuriated motorists around O'ahu.

The old program was also run by a private company that was paid $29 for every ticket. That struck us as a major incentive for the van cams to work overtime, spewing out as many citations as possible. In a majority of cases, tickets were issued to motorists going less than 10 mph over the speed limit.

If this new program must be operated by a private company, the operators should receive a flat fee rather than a profit per-ticket. And we want a full debate over where precisely in the intersection a vehicle must be to trigger a red-light photo citation.