Only warnings would be issued during the first year, which Inouye is describing as an educational period. Real tickets would come in the ensuing two years and the money collected would help pay for the program. If there's enough support for it, Inouye said, she's willing to take the "pilot" provision out of the bill and make it a permanent program.

Inouye said it's important that a discussion take place on the issue now, saying that there is anecdotal evidence that serious accidents are being caused by red-light runners. "People should be penalized if they run through the red lights," Inouye said.

House Transportation Chairman Joe Souki, D-8th (Wailuku, Waiehu), said he also intends to introduce legislation that would set up red-light photo enforcement cameras. Souki helped shepherd through a similar proposal last year, but during the waning days of the session House and Senate leaders could not agree on a bill that would have combined red-light cameras with a three-tiered driver's licensing system for teenagers.

Souki said he's reintroducing the bill because he believes such a program would help free up police officers to deal with other responsibilities. "Police can't be everywhere, all hours of the night, and the camera is there 24 hours," Souki said, "Especially at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning when the kids are going to be racing. They can't race during the peak hours."

While Inouye's bill calls for the program to be in place only on O'ahu, Souki said he would prefer all the counties have the option of putting it into place.

A Honolulu Police Department spokeswoman said key administrators have not seen the proposals and would reserve comment until they do.

In 2002, lawmakers repealed the so-called "van cam" program only three months after it began when they were bombarded by complaints.

A firestorm erupted in the debate over use of the cameras and the fact that many of the thousands who were being issued citations were going only a few miles over the speed limit. The van cam program was run by a contractor hired by the state.

'Aina Haina resident Ed Sueoka said he likes the idea of red-light traffic cameras. "It's getting worse and worse out there," said Sueoka, a 41-year-old engineer. "It's not like the Mainland yet, but there's a trend toward more people passing through the yellows and reds. They just don't like want to be left behind."

Such maneuvers are "dangerous and unfair to other people who do have the green light to go across," Sueoka said.

Richard Mau, a 47-year-old travel industry executive from Kapahulu, said he thinks red-light cameras are a good idea, but a better one would be to go back to the traffic camera program designed to snag speeders.

"If I had to choose where our resources should go, I would much rather have it on the freeways where guys are racing and they're jeopardizing other people's lives," Mau said.

Souki said he's working on that, too. He said he is looking at separate legislation that would allow counties to use stationary traffic cameras — not van cams — to enforce speeding laws along the state's most dangerous corridors.