Traffic cameras bring out the crybaby drivers

I am amazed at all the whiners and crybabies on this island concerning the laser speed violation program.

>> Our elected officials have the right and obligation to control the public roads by use of police, signs and yes, laser. If you don't like this, take the bus.

>> A driver's license is a privilege, not a right. Certain criteria must be met before one is issued and maintained after issuance or the license can be revoked.

>> No one has any expectation of privacy on our private roadways. If you want privacy, stay at home.

>> All drivers must be ticketed equally. Police, who are frequently seen speeding and running red lights and stop signs, must follow the law, too. Unfortunately, many feel they are above the law.

>> Laser cameras should be set up at stop lights as soon as possible. People running stop lights place others at risk and should be off the roads, or face increased fines and insurance premiums.

Speeding and running lights might save a little time, but what do people do with the three or four minutes they save? Is it worth the risk?

Joseph Alexander

Cars today are safer at higher speeds

To answer the question about traffic cameras, "Is it about safety or is it about money" -- it's about money. Today's cars are tremendously safer and better than when the speed limits were made. A Toyota Tercel or Honda Civic of today can stop shorter and corner better than a Ferrari of the '50s, yet the speed limits have not changed.

According to the traffic safety commission, a safe speed is what 85 percent of the drivers would be doing if there were no speed limit posted. Speed does not kill -- slow drivers holding up traffic kill. If you want to find out the safe speed, get rid of speed limit for one month, find out what 80 to 85 percent of the drivers are doing and make that the speed limit. Then give tickets to those going more than 10 to 15 percent faster and 10 percent slower.

Rand Pellegrino
Kailua

Cameras infringe on drivers' civil rights

The new traffic cameras are an infringement on our civil rights as Americans. These cameras make Americans prove themselves innocent. Are we no longer presumed innocent until proven guilty? I hope that the good people of Hawaii will stand up at election time against this and the people who imposed this upon us. Together we are free, divided we plead for our innocence.

Daniel Thiel
Kailua

[Quotables] "They shouldn't be interfering in the business decisions of restaurant owners. Business is bad enough as it is." Colin Nishida Owner of Side Street Inn, on the City Council's determination to pass a restaurant smoking ban. The Council will hold a public hearing Jan. 30 on its latest proposal, which would prohibit smoking in all restaurants except in open-air areas the meet specific requirements. "In two months we took a country apart. We took an evil government out of power and replaced it with something with social decency." Capt. Charles Wright Commander of Carrier Air Wing 11, speaking after the nuclear carrier USS Carl Vinson and four other warships carrying 7,000 service personnel arrived at Pearl Harbor for a six-day layover after completing the first 73 days of "Operation Enduring Freedom." The Carl Vinson's aviators flew more than 3,000 sorties and dropped more than 2 million pounds of bombs and rockets on Taliban and al-Qaida targets in Afghanistan.

Churches should focus on spiritual needs

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. So maybe those church leaders who are united against legalized gambling ought to look at their own houses of worship before they start telling the rest of us what to do ("Hawaii's diverse religions unite in a campaign to keep gambling illegal," Star-Bulletin, Jan. 5).

First, they should call for a stop to church-sponsored bingo and return all the money they've bilked from poor people who were trying to win cash or prizes. Isn't that gambling?

Then they should announce that henceforth, no church or religious organization will hold raffles that offer prizes. Isn't that a form of gambling? Oh, that's right -- raffles aren't like lotteries because you don't "buy" tickets. You make "donations" to a good cause: church coffers.

These religious leaders and organizations also should divest themselves of any stocks or speculative investments. Think about all the people who bought high-tech stocks or Enron shares. They gambled and lost big time. That must mean stocks and mutuals are bad bets, too.

Of course I'm being facetious. My point is this: Gambling and casinos are not the real problem. It's greed and need that drive people to do wrong, and there is no law on Earth or in heaven that will ever completely safeguard society against those things.

Rather than getting involved in politics and issues that have no direct relation to religion, perhaps church leaders should focus on the spiritual needs of their flocks. If they practice what they preach, their followers will be able to resist the evils of gambling in every form -- be it bingo, raffle tickets, lotteries or the stock market.

Rich Figel
Kailua

Choosing a church is a gamble, too

Churches are against gambling in Hawaii, but isn't religion also a big gamble? Let's see ... did I pick the right one in this race to death? Should I have picked Catholic, Jewish, Lutheran, Episcopalian, fundamentalist (Christian, Moslem, etc.), Buddhism?

OK, now here I am. It's all over now. Which one did I land in? Catholic, nearer to or further from God, no; Islam, with 72 virgins, clear cool water and shade, no; fundamentalist Christian, Wal-Mart with lots of flags (American, of course), no ...

Oh, great, I hit the jackpot -- Valhalla, with lots of Germanic blondes. Thank you, thank you. I am so glad I gave my money to the Lutheran Church.

Edwin Corl

The General showed the way, rain or shine

I remember a man who believed in a struggle, who carried his flag with a message and a dream that one day we, too, would see, and then came Sept. 11 and those who had been blinded for so long came to see this man for who he was. Not a preacher, yet a teacher of life and death. He stood there at Kapiolani Boulevard and Kalakaua Avenue so that we shall never forget the memory of those who have fallen for our freedom.

In memory of John H. "the General" Rogers Jr.

Andres Segrera

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