City Councilmembers Calvin Say and Tommy Waters want the city to start collecting the $81 million owed in traffic fines (“Council proposal seeks to help state collect unpaid traffic fines,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 15).

We already would have paid if we had the money to pay it. Say said the money is owed to Hawaii’s taxpayers. So he wants the city to take money from taxpayers because it’s owed to taxpayers. But he’s not going to give it to us, the citizen taxpayers. He wants to “provide additional funding for enforcement of state and city traffic laws.” To what end? To issue more traffic tickets so taxpayers owe still more that we don’t have the money to pay?

We don’t want more. We want less.

No. 1, we want a resolution passed that forgives and erases the so-called owed $81 million. We want the police department to start preparing for the era of full self-driving cars.

These cars are going to obey the traffic laws and we will not need more, but fewer police.

The police chief and staff need to be concentrating on crime, not extorting money from people trying to get to and from work.

Steve Barnes

Kaneohe

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