Pedestrian upgrades should have priority
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The Legislature has the opportunity — or, more accurately, the duty — to do what it can to boost traffic safety in a state that has compiled an alarming record of pedestrian fatalities.
That opportunity has come to the conference committee considering a bill HB 357, a measure aimed at implementing some straightforward and sensible improvements, including:
These all are good ideas, made imperative by the incidents involving pedestrians in recent months.
However, House conferees seem to favor pairing these measures with a proposal for intersection cameras. That's a promising concept, too, but it doesn't appear to have the support it needs to pass this year.
The conference committee needs to separate the two ideas and see to it that at least the pedestrian upgrades pass — and, as they seem to have the backing of all sides, that should be a slam-dunk.
Meanwhile, it's a shame that installing cameras at key intersections is a good idea whose time, it appears, has not yet come.
It was abandoned in 2002 when the Legislature repealed the controversial "van cams" project. In a case of guilt by association, the well was then poisoned against intersection cameras, favored then — and still championed now — by Rep. Joe Souki of Maui.
It's too bad that the Legislature has not given it consideration since. The proposal will need public input if it's to avoid the same fate of the van cams.
The state will need to decide whether a new program would be publicly or privately run, and there must be discussions on the point in the intersection that would trigger a ticket for the driver.
Other questions are sure to come up, but we need to start asking them now.
A better addition to HB 357 might be a requirement for further study of the intersection-camera idea.
