ROD THOMPSON / RTHOMPSON@STARBULLETIN.COM Big Island traffic enforcement officer Chris Gali sat in his patrol car last month with video equipment used to combat drunken driving. The white box by the mirror is the camera, and a small monitor and controls are in his hand. The black tube on the dash is a separate radar unit.

Cameras watch
Big Isle DUI suspects

Police credit the video cameras
with catching more drunken drivers
as they are on the road

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> It's midnight, and the headlights of an idling police car are lighting the scene of a pleasant, middle-aged woman trying to stand on one foot.

She keeps toppling over while a police officer stands behind her to keep her from falling. Traffic enforcement officer Chris Gali is in front of her, trying to give her a sobriety test, but after an evening of drinking, she's having a hard time concentrating on what he's saying.

All of this is being watched by a fist-sized video camera peering through the front window of Gali's car. In his trunk, a standard VCR is recording it.

Hawaii County police will soon get seven more such cameras using a $37,618 federal Safe Communities Program grant.

Although Big Island police have had as many as three video cameras for about five years, Gali's is the only one currently operational. But that has been enough to show the value of the system, police say.

"His success is what prompted us to want to get more cameras," said traffic services Sgt. Randy Apele.

Statistics also show the success. In 1996, Big Island police made 632 drunken driving arrests. By 1999, that climbed to 1,207. But last year, the number was cut back to 835.

Enforcement is going as strong as ever with at least one drunken driving roadblock in each of the island's nine districts every month, so fewer drivers arrested suggests fewer drunks are on the road.

"It's working," Gali said.

The purpose of the cameras is "to record driving patterns and other evidence," Apele said. "It's not like the speed enforcement cameras in Honolulu."

But sometimes speeding goes with drinking. Gali once caught a drunken driver going 87 mph in a 35 mph zone.

Another time, he caught two teenage drivers, so busy drag-racing on a city street that they didn't notice his police car behind them. They thought they had an excuse: The legal drag races that day on a county track had been canceled.

After making more than 50 videos over two years, Gali has been to court only once. Generally, defense attorneys see the videos and tell their clients not to fight, he said. That saves Gali a lot of time in court.

Other counties have access to the federal grants with varying results.

Maui, with six cameras now, has had them since the early 1990s, said Lt. Charles Hirata. As on the Big Island, Maui police find they save time.

"It really cuts down on our court appearances," Hirata said. "When they look at that, they go, 'Oh my God, is that me?'"

But on Kauai, defense lawyers have taken a harder line, said traffic safety officer Joe Kaauwai. They require officers to testify about the videos, creating more court time for police.

Kauai has been using video cameras for about five years, but drunken driving there has not gone down, Kaauwai said. The apparent reason is more people drinking because of economic hard times.

Honolulu police also have access to the federal grants, said spokeswoman Jean Motoyama. But the grants may be used for several purposes, and Honolulu police have decided not to use the money for video cameras, she said. Instead, they feel they get more results by using the money for more roadblocks, she said.