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Lawmakers Consider Traffic Camera Change

Photo Citations Could Be Kept Off Record

POSTED: 4:16 p.m. HST February 4, 2002
UPDATED: 9:36 a.m. HST February 5, 2002

Legislative leaders are considering giving drivers a big break in order to save the traffic camera program.

Lawmakers who support the cameras are seriously considering keeping photo citations off of driving records.

Supporters of the traffic camera program have been hoping that angry reaction to the program might have died down by now. However, pressure to repeal it remains high.

House transportation chairm! an Rep. Joe Souki floated a proposal Monday that would only put a photo citation on your record if you were caught going more than 25 miles over the speed limit.

Souki admits that kind of change may be necessary to save the program.

"There seems to be quite a clamor for some kind of remedy or mitigation to the problem," Souki said.

The Cayetano administration supports the idea.

"The police have their own discretion on an individual basis, the photo cameras have very little discretion," transportation director Brian Minaai said.

The Department of Transportation said photo citations were never intended to go on driving records, but didn't make that clear enough to lawmakers when they wrote the traffic camera law.

Souki put off a vote on the bill for nine days. He still hopes a change in public sentiment will make the change unnecessary.

"I want to keep the options open; we just let it evolve and see where it get! s to," Souki said.

There is a similar situation developing in the state Senate where critics may force a vote Tuesday to abolish the program.

If it does, that means it may be up to the House to propose the compromise.

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