Editorial: Red-light cameras aiming for safety

Red-light cameras are coming! Red-light cameras are coming!

Did that get your attention? If so, share the news with your neighbors, friends and especially anyone who might drive your car: Slow down, and stay behind intersection boundaries until that green light is seen.

The state Department of Transportation (DOT), in cooperation with the Honolulu Police Department (HPD), is expected to turn on a first traffic enforcement camera at the intersection of Vineyard Boulevard and Palama Street within two weeks. Then, the first warnings will go out to the owners of cars that have been detected as running red lights.

The pilot project, a sort of automated “traffic cop,” will use video technology to identify and issue citations to those registered owners, as determined by a car’s license plate.

After 30 days of warnings, citations and fines will go out to vehicle owners.

Drivers who haven’t been paying attention to the news could be taken by surprise to learn that they can be ticketed for running a red light without a police officer on the scene. So it’s important that DOT get the word out to drivers that their vehicles will be observed at the selected intersections.

It would be advisable for the HPD and DOT to run a robust information campaign over the next several weeks to get the word out.

If getting the word out results in decreased scofflaw behavior and a dearth of tickets, it’s all to the good — because the purpose of the traffic enforcement cameras is to increase safety and deter drivers from risking accidents by ignoring that light that means “stop.”

The second camera is scheduled to go up next month, at the intersection of Vineyard Boulevard and Liliha Street. Another eight sites will be chosen for operation — four in November and four in December — based on an engineering study of 14 intersections in Honolulu that the DOT will release this month.

At each of the 10 sites, warnings will be issued for the first 30 days after cameras go live. Once the warning period concludes, citations will be issued to registered owners of vehicles caught in the act.

The pending DOT study found that about 10 cars per day ran red lights at the Vineyard-­Palama intersection.

Twenty years ago, the DOT tried out a “van cam” system to catch speeders by automated means, but the technique caused an outcry, and there was objection that the van cam system did not adequately identify drivers. After investing $8 million into the system, then-Gov. Ben Cayetano shut down the program four months after it began.

This time around, the cameras won’t identify drivers. Instead, they will identify the license plate of the car that unlawfully enters the intersection on a red light. Legislation authorizes issuing the citation to a car’s owner.

The cameras are being installed for the purpose of improving traffic safety, as expressly noted in the act creating the new system. Rather than running “speed traps” that could produce a windfall for a vendor operating the van cams, money collected from red-light citations will go to a DOT fund to manage the system.

Red-light cameras are a good idea for busy and dangerous intersections in Honolulu. They calm traffic by playing a part in reducing unsafe behavior; that in turn makes intersections safer for not only other drivers, but cyclists and pedestrians. The cameras can also document just how much law-breaking behavior is really going on.

To ensure fair application and transparency, DOT should have a system in place to share applicable information, as well as any problems that might crop up.

Finally, it may help to remember this easy trick to avoid a traffic enforcement camera-triggered citation: Don’t enter an intersection once the traffic light controlling it has turned red.