Put emergency brake
on traffic camerasThe issue: Motorists have become
angered by enforcement of
speed limits by cameras.PUBLIC anger about the state Department of Transportation's obstinate enforcement of speed limits by recently installed cameras is nearing road rage. Gov. Cayetano or the Legislature should call a halt to this program to prevent a dangerous situation on Oahu's highways.
State transportation officials have handled the operation poorly from the start, when it contracted with Affiliated Computer Services Inc. to provide the service. They seemed to ignore a San Diego judge's recent dismissal of 300 tickets resulting from photos taken by the same company. The judge ruled that the evidence was unreliable because the company was being paid for each ticket instead of a flat fee, and so had a profit motive.
A spokeswoman for Brian Minaai, the state director of transportation, has argued that the state agreed to a $29.75-per-ticket contract because the traffic-photo program is temporary and would be more economical than if run for a flat fee. Under a flat-fee agreement, the state would have lost money if it chose to end the program before the contract expired. Minaai should have sought to achieve both economy and adherence to legal principles as set out by the San Diego judge.
The system has been inflexible, including an apparent lack of cooperation with police. A Honolulu police officer last week issued a ticket for speeding to the driver of a traffic-photo van. The company plans to complain to the police commission.
Police officers generally exercise discretion in issuing speeding tickets based on traffic conditions and how fast the offending vehicle is traveling above the speed limit. The photo system does not take traffic conditions into consideration, and state transportation officials have not indicated the threshold of the miles per hour above the speed limit that would result in tickets, only that "speeding is speeding." Thus, a motorist could be ticketed for driving 1 mph above the limit, pay a fine and be slapped with an increase in car insurance.
Defense attorneys are poised to fight the speeding tickets in court -- the San Diego case was a class action -- while prosecutors are preparing for challenges. State Rep. Colleen Meyer, a proponent of the 1998 legislation that authorized the traffic-photo system, and other Republican legislators have called for terminating or revising the project.
Transportation officials seem determined to stick with the system. Unless Cayetano orders changes to approximate what motorists have come to expect from enforcement of speeding laws, the Legislature should bring the system to a screeching halt.
Hawaii is ideal place
for study of religionThe issue: UH's President Evan Dobelle
has proposed expanding religious studies.Once again, the relatively new president of the University of Hawaii has come up with an imaginative proposal, this time to expand religious studies at UH by turning the Religion Department into a divinity school or a center for religious studies. This is surely an idea worth exploring, with a couple of caveats.
Addressing members of the faculty, administrative officers and students at a retreat last week, President Evan Dobelle said: "Given the state of the world, it seems to me that our Department of Religion needs to be underlined and have the capacity to have a full-blown school of divinity that will take a standing alongside the great schools like at Yale and Harvard, embrace the East and all the religions."
Clearly a university supported by the state Hawaii must take care to preserve the line between church and state. Seeking to ordain ministers of any denomination would seem to step over that line and should be resisted. Beyond that, however, a scholarly institute devoted to the study of religion as an influential ingredient in the lives of individuals and of society could be a blessing.
Implied in Dobelle's vision is a school whose research and teaching would go beyond the bounds of the Judeo-Christian tradition that underlies so much of American life, no matter whether one practices or even believes in one of those faiths. To have a school that would give equal attention to Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and the other religions of Asia would be to perform a signal service to Hawaii, America, and the Western World.
How much better we all would have been last September, for instance, if Hawaii had been home to an authoritative scholar of Islam who could have explained, immediately, how the Muslims of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida band of thugs had perverted the sacred teachings of the Koran.
The long-range implications are equally attractive. Americans who seek careers in business in Asia after attending the UH business school, or those who intend to be foreign service or military officers, or those hoping to become journalists would be eminently better prepared if they understood the fundamental values and philosophies that motivate the people of Asia.
Given the geography and the ethnic background of Hawaii and its people, the university would seem to be the ideal site for such a school. As Dobelle pointed out: "I think it could be a fabulous opportunity to bring people together from around the world. Where better that Hawaii that is so multicultural, interracial and has all the religions of the world?" Where better, indeed.
Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.Don Kendall, Publisher
Frank Bridgewater, managing editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, assistant managing editor 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
Lucy Young-Oda, assistant managing editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.comRichard Halloran, editorial page director, 529-4790; rhalloran@starbulletin.com
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin (USPS 249460) is published daily by
John Flanagan, contributing editor 294-3533; jflanagan@starbulletin.com
Oahu Publications at 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813.
Periodicals postage paid at Honolulu, Hawaii. Postmaster: Send address changes to
Star-Bulletin, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802.
