The Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) wants to add 160 additional automated cameras that spot and ticket speeders and red light-runners, throughout the islands — a gesture of confidence in the cameras as a tool to enhance safety. The Legislature came close to endorsing HDOT’s plan during this session, but ran into a procedural deadline. Now HDOT plans to scale up anyway — and that’s a good decision.
Red light and speeding cameras can save lives. Throughout the state, speeding has been a top contributing factor in traffic deaths over the past decade, and efforts to stop the carnage with reminders to “drive aloha” have not been enough to change driver behavior. In fact, Honolulu’s impaired driving arrests were found to have increased by 30% with the latest report; and over the past year, traffic-related deaths have spiked to “unusual” levels. New techniques are called for.
So far, HDOT operates 17 enforcement cameras, all at busy Honolulu intersections, and they have proven their value and accuracy, capturing images of vehicles and their license plates as evidence of infractions and to identify cars’ registered owners. Citations based on cam data began going out to red-light-running cars’ owners in November 2022 — and since then, major crashes at these intersections have dropped by 69%.
On March 1, the Honolulu cameras began monitoring for speeders, and the results were daunting. Even when calibrated to issue warnings only for cars traveling 11 miles an hour or more above the speed limit, the cams documented, on average, more than 740 speeding cars each day between March 14 and April 30. That’s a frightening statistic that must be remedied — and can be, by running the program.
Though House Bill 697, boosting the camera program, didn’t make it to a floor vote this session, legislative support for its passage was there, and the Legislature must take pains to pass it in the upcoming session. The bill appropriates funds for traffic cameras, and to handle the extra processing required, authorizes HDOT and state Department of Law Enforcement agents to validate and act on infractions, as county law enforcement agents do now.
Lacking the infusion of state funds, HDOT’s current plan is to use red-light fines and state highway money to add cameras, at a reasonable rate of about 20 a year over the next eight years: 100 more on Oahu, and 20 each on Hawaii, Kauai and Maui.
The cameras won’t be placed randomly. Placement choices are made only after studies verify the conditions are appropriate, using location-specific data such as crash numbers and traffic volume, and engineering analysis to confirm that speed limits and camera placement are properly set.
When placed in locations known to be dangerous and plagued by scofflaw drivers, these automated cameras are definitively “worth it” — accurate, reliable and efficient. Available 24-7, they take pressure off police, who can rarely watch an intersection day and night. And the use of automatic, unbiased technology is arguably the fairest, most comprehensive way to enforce traffic laws.
It’s time to get serious about dissuading speeders. Added traffic cams do that, as does Senate Bill 97, which has been sent to the governor — increasing penalties for a third or more than three offenses of excessive speeding offenses (30 miles an hour or more over a speed limit, or over 80 anywhere) to a misdemeanor with a mandatory minimum 30-day jail sentence.
The biggest benefit of heightened penalties or added enforcement cameras isn’t in the money collected or jail time served; it’s in changing driver behavior. Drivers learn that they won’t be ticketed if they follow traffic laws, making roads safer and commuting smoother. And lives are saved. Let’s do this.
