Since the newest segment of Saddle Road — also known as the Daniel K. Inouye Highway — opened, letter writers and callers to the Tribune-Herald have complained police are operating a speed trap on the east-west traffic artery.
Since the newest segment of Saddle Road — also known as the Daniel K. Inouye Highway — opened, letter writers and callers to the Tribune-Herald have complained police are operating a speed trap on the east-west traffic artery.
Hawaii Police Department statistics indicate there will be fewer speeding tickets written on the Saddle this year than in 2012, but that doesn’t tell the entire story.
Speeding citations on the Saddle increased sharply from 1,125 in 2010 to 1,491 in 2011 to a high of 2,366 in 2012 — when the first segment of the improved highway was completed. By Dec. 10 this year, there were 1,417 speeding citations issued on the Saddle — but 517 of those were written on the newest segment of the highway between its opening Sept. 7 and Dec. 10, a period of just more than two months. If that citation rate were maintained during an entire year, there would be 3,000 tickets written on that portion of road alone.
Rod Thompson of Hawaiian Paradise Park wrote in a letter published Sept. 22 that on Sept. 10, three days after the new segment opened, he saw four police cars writing tickets, calling the enforcement “no attempt to educate drivers, since at least one of the police cars was completely unmarked lacking even a blue dome light.” Thompson concluded “police have chosen trickery over education.”
“At least initially, and by initially I mean at least two weeks, there should’ve been a period in which they attempted to educate rather than to punish,” Thompson said Friday. “After that initial period, if there are fools out there — and we know there are fools out there — then, I guess they go back to their regular police job.
“But I think when something’s brand new, I think everyone, including the police, should try to make the people appreciative of the new facility rather than fearful of the new facility.”
Thompson’s complaint was echoed by Spike Werner of Hilo, who wrote in a letter published Nov. 10 police “are practicing entrapment.”
“Motorists’ only reminder of the changes in speed limits are (being) penalized by the police ticketing them for what are often simple oversights,” Werner wrote.
“I believe that any state that believes in order, as in law and order, the order component would be against using unmarked police cars,” Werner said Friday. “You want the public to know that these members of the constabulary are out there letting people know that you’re not supposed to go too fast through here. You’re supposed to pay attention to the stop signs and so on. Instead, to sit there obscurely and pounce on people, that doesn’t forward order. It causes disrespect for the law.”
Werner also said speed traps “give tourists an undesirable talking point” about Hawaii.
Sgt. Robert Pauole, director of the police Traffic Services Section, acknowledged speeding enforcement was stepped up following completion of the new segment of highway, but the aim of the ticketing is getting drivers to slow down
“When the new section opened up, our administration wanted to ensure that it doesn’t become a free-for-all, high-speed way to go from the east to west side, so we increased our enforcement up there during that period since it opened up,” Pauole said Friday. “That could account for the additional amount of tickets that was given there in that short period.”
He said speeding enforcement is continuing on the Saddle but “has slowed from when it first opened.”
“We wanted to show a presence right away, like we did when the first section on the Hilo side opened up,” he said. “When we opened that section up, we wanted to increase our presence there because our administration knew that (speeding) was going to become a problem.
“If you look, you’ll see that traffic fatalities on the Hamakua Coast have decreased, and a lot of it has to do with the opening up of this new highway because it’s a faster way to get (to West Hawaii). In fact, I can’t remember the last time I drove the Hamakua Coast to go to Kona or even Waimea. I’ll use the Saddle Road because it’s a faster, easier drive.”
Pauole said because of increased speeding enforcement, he thinks drivers “are getting the message” they need to slow down on the Saddle. He added the patrols have been subsidized by a National Transportation Safety Board grant to combat aggressive driving. He said the grant “covers the major highways on our island” and targets violations such as “speeding, tailgating, passing on double-solid lines, reckless driving, like that.”
He added so-called “excessive speeding” — drivers exceeding the speed limit by more than 30 mph — is also a concern on the Saddle.
“With those citations, I like to see where they’re enforcing and what kinds of speeds we’re talking about because I maintain the grants,” Pauole said. “I noticed that we were getting some in the 90s and 100s. The motorcycles, especially, are really bad. We had a few motorcycles that never stopped. We initiated some cases where we weren’t even able to get a license plate (number).”
Excessive speeders and scofflaws aside, Thompson said he thinks the long, straight stretch of the Saddle causes some drivers to speed unconsciously, a phenomenon sometimes called “highway hypnosis.”
“It’s a problem that any good road, and that’s a good road, tends to make people comfortable and tends to sort of obscure the fact that they’re moving rapidly,” he said. “If you’re on a narrow road, you see trees whipping by and you realize you’re going fast. If you have a wide road, you can even innocently speed up without knowing you’re doing it. I’m not saying everyone is innocent, but I’m saying some people are just lacking caution rather than having real intent of breaking the law.”
Pauole acknowledged that can be a problem, especially for drivers coming from Kona to Hilo at about the 11-mile marker, where the improved state highway ends and the old county road, with its speed limit of 35 mph, begins.
“You’re driving along and all of a sudden the highway turns into that old, winding and narrow road, and it drops down. It’s not so much they don’t know but they just get complacent driving this nice highway for awhile,” he said. “And no matter how many signs they have, flashing lights and road bumps, people are still going too fast in that area and they end up in the bushes.
“People need to become more aware of that section. … The roadway changes from state to county and you can see the difference because that phase of the highway hasn’t been built yet. The county did a really great job of putting additional signs on the county side that indicate that there are bends in the road.
“We just want people to be aware of the changes. There are a lot of accidents there and we want people to be careful.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.