HONOLULU (KHON2) — It was supposed to last two months, but now the state’s new speed camera warning period is getting a major extension.
Tens of thousands of citations are being handed out and transportation officials said drivers aren’t slowing down fast enough.
If you’ve been driving – and speeding – through Likelike Highway and School Street lately, odds are, you’ve been caught on camera.
The Hawaii Department of Transportation said it’s averaging 30,000 warning citations a week. By comparison, the Honolulu Police Department said between 25,000 and 26,000 speeding citations were handed out island-wide in all of 2024.
It’s a staggering number that’s forcing the state to hit the brakes.
“We’re right now targeting or sending out warnings for those that are going 11 miles per hour over the speed limit. So if we had targeted seven or five miles per hour over you can almost double that,” said Ed Sniffen, director of the state Department of Transportation.
The speed camera pilot project went live on March 1 as part of a 60-day warning period that was supposed to end April 30. With the surge in citations, DOT said they don’t want to overwhelm the system.
“That being said, we’re probably going to extend this warning period out to October, to give the public a little bit more time to adjust, but also to give us the time to work with our judiciary and our prosecutors to ensure that we have capacity in our programs to push these types of numbers through if necessary,” explained Sniffen.
The project is an extension of the red light running violations that started in November 2022. Cameras installed at 10 Honolulu intersections snap photos of cars going over the posted speed limit, and during the warning period, violators receive a citation in the mail, but with no fine attached.
Once the warning period ends, citations for those caught speeding five miles over the speed limit will come with real fines, starting at $250 for the first violation.
“That’s a little bit too steep because everybody does that. I’m sure even the law enforcement people do it. I’m pretty sure they do, you know,” said driver Cathy Ehia, who wasn’t even aware of the safety cameras. “I understand it because we have a lot of death, fatalities and everything, but that’s a little too steep.”
According to the HDOT, over the last five years, nearly half of all deaths on Hawaii’s highways were attributed to speed.
The money from the fines will be deposited into the Automated Speed Enforcement Systems Program Special Fund. The fund can only be used for the implementation, operation, and maintenance of the speed safety camera system.
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The DOT insists, the program is about safety, not revenue.
“We don’t want to collect that money, we don’t want to issue the citation. We just want everybody to slow down,” said Sniffen.