‘Speeders’ may bring
traffic courts to haltThe issue: The traffic courts
are bracing for a deluge
of traffic camera cases.Challenges to camera-generated citations for speeding are due to hit the courts soon and threaten to cause near anarchy by jamming the judicial process -- which will do no one any good. Cited drivers who contend that they have been wrongly accused have every right to have a day in court, and should. The rest should pay up and find another way to fight this badly conceived and executed project.
Otherwise, drivers who foul court proceedings will be akin to those who threaten the technicians in the vans taking the pictures that turn into citations Harassing them is not only childish but misses the real targets, which are the Department of Transportation and the Legislature that imposed this Orwellian scheme on the driving public.
Initial statistics suggest that a tsunami is rising. So far, 1551 citations have been issued but only 158 motorists have paid fines. Another 41 have submitted statements challenging the citations while still another 70 have declared that someone else was driving. That leaves a torrent of irritated motorists ready to flood the courts.
Here's a twist that hasn't been resolved: The DOT says that if a car owner claims he or she wasn't driving at the time of the alleged infraction, he will be asked to finger the driver so that a new citation could be issued. What if the owner refuses? Will the burden of proof be on the prosecutor to find out exactly who was driving?
In addition, it's still not clear whether the DOT is drawing the line of enforcement precisely at the speed limit, or 5 mph over the limit, or 10 mph. Polices studies say the vast majority of speeding tickets issued by police officers are to drivers going 10 mph or more over the limit. By playing coy, the DOT threatens to cite drivers who might not be cited by a cop.
Another potential discrimination has surfaced. A rental car owner will be charged a flat $77 for going over the limit. The driver of a privately owned vehicle will be hit with a $27 fee plus $5 for every mile per hour over the limit. Thus the rental car going 5 mph too fast will draw a fine of $77 but a private car will be charged $52. Once again, Hawaii seeks to hit the tourist in the wallet.
Meantime, cameras are being mounted at several intersections to catch drivers who run red lights, a move that should not arouse anger because a large majority of the citizenry seems eager to hit the brakes on this dangerous practice. It might be tempting to label those intersections red-light districts, but we won't.
Consumer wariness
must be heightenedThe issue: Consumer fraud is more
prevalent in Hawaii than in most other
states, but not involving identity theft.THEFT of a person's Social Security, credit card or other identifying number is the leading method of consumer fraud nationwide and in Hawaii. However, the state's decision to stop using Social Security numbers on driver's licenses may have lessened the problem, and that should continue as more residents renew licenses and obtain new numbers in the next few years.
Despite that improvement, consumer fraud in Hawaii remains at an unacceptable level -- fourth highest in the country, per capita, behind only the District of Columbia, Alaska and Washington. Figures compiled by the Federal Trade Commission for last year indicate that Hawaii residents are not as wary as they should be of shady operations, especially those involving computers.
The FTC reported that 42 percent of consumer-fraud complaints nationally -- and 26 percent of the 844 complaints made last year in Hawaii -- involved identity theft. In most cases, victims didn't even know how their identities had been stolen.
Howard Beales, the FTC's director of consumer protection, said consumers should avoid leaving their credit card receipts where they could be found and should not write Social Security numbers on checks. That advice is difficult to follow for Hawaii residents who still have Social Security numbers on their driver's licenses, which store clerks want to see to confirm a customer's identity.
Identity theft to steal money from bank accounts or make credit card purchases is the most damaging kind of consumer fraud and among the fastest-growing crimes in the country. Besides out-of-pocket expenses -- an average of nearly $1,000 per complaint in Hawaii -- victims suffer damage to their credit ratings and invasion of privacy. More than half of the identity-theft complaints in Hawaii last year were about credit-card fraud.
In some cases, identity theft cannot be blamed on consumer carelessness. A Seattle man was sentenced last week to more than two years in prison for stealing ID information from garbage cans and mailboxes of nearly 400 victims. Computer hackers have stolen many credit card numbers from companies' databases.
A greater proportion of Hawaii residents seem more vulnerable to computer-related scams than to identity theft. Dishonest transactions in Internet auctions, misrepresentations regarding computer software or dealings with Internet service providers together exceeded the number of identity thefts. Those numbers -- not to mention fraudulent non-auction purchases made over the Internet -- appear to have resulted in Hawaii's high level of consumer-fraud complaints.
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
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