By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

Given all the talk lately in Honolulu about speeding, traffic cameras, auto safety, congestion, graduated driver licensing, light rail and bus rapid transit, a number of new studies from around the world offer plenty of food for thought for O'ahu Drivetimers.

I'm not agreeing with or advocating the positions suggested by any of these reports. I'm just saying they're worth thinking about:

• A new report from London suggests that traffic cameras catch someone speeding somewhere in Britain every 15 seconds. That amounts to more than 2 million tickets a year.

While 36 percent of British motorists thought the cameras did prevent speeding, only 23 percent felt they saved lives or prevented accidents. Another 28 percent thought they did nothing but make money for the government.

• Motorcyclists were at fault in 75 percent of all fatal or near-fatal crashes involving motorcycles in Australia last year.

A police study showed that excessive speed, alcohol and drug use were often involved. But the study also showed that left-hand curves (people drive on the left side in Australia) with a downhill slope were particularly lethal for motorcycle riders.

Unlicensed riders accounted for one in five deaths. Learner permit riders were involved in another 20 percent of crashes.

• Of the 2,335 children who died in alcohol-related car crashes between 1997 and 2002 in the United States, 68 percent were riding in the car with a driver who had been drinking, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most of the children killed inside a car with a drunken driver were not using safety restraints, but the majority of drinking drivers survived, suggesting that they buckled themselves up but didn't worry about their passengers.

The study points out weaknesses in state laws against those who would endanger children by letting them ride in a car with a drunken driver, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

• Building new mass transit systems mainly helps those who don't have any other means of transportation, but is not a solution to highway congestion, according to a new policy report from The Heritage Foundation.

The report challenges another study that suggests new mass transit systems have eased congestion in more than 70 urbanized areas.

"Attempts to spend large sums of money to get a few automobile drivers out of their cars risk losing sight of transit's main mission, which is to provide mobility for people who cannot drive," the report suggests.

More cost-effective solutions to congestion include freeway ramp metering, traffic signal coordination and quickly clearing stalled and crashed vehicles from highways, the authors said.

• Lengthening the timing of yellow lights at many intersections may be a more effective means of reducing accidents than using traffic cameras to catch red-light runners, according to a study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The study of more than 100 intersections in New York state noted an 8 percent reduction in reportable crashes when the yellow caution light was lengthened and it is followed by a brief all-red period for both directions of traffic.

The study notes that more than 1 million motor vehicle crashes occur annually at signalized intersections in the United States.

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.