HONOLULU (KHON2) -- The current speed limit in a school zone is 25 miles per hour. Drivers on Oahu would have to slow down to 20 under a proposal before the city council.
"We need to use all speed mitigation measures to protect our keiki," said Esther Kiaana, City Councilmember for District 3.
According to Honolulu police, this year, there have been eight traffic fatalities involving pedestrian.
The National Center for Safe Routes to School data shows the likelihood for a fatality drops from 45 percent to five percent at a 20-mile per hour speed limit.
"We want something that's reasonable something that's going to be enforceable something people are going to follow," said City Councilmember Tyler Dos Santos-Tam. "If we lower the speed limit to 15 but nobody follows it then we really haven't accomplished much,"
The city will be able to lower the speed limits around schools much faster, now that the state passed a law that waives the requirement of an engineering study, a study that historically would take years.
"By creating 20 miles an hour category that doesn't exist before it only went from 25 to 15, we're going to give the Department of Transportation Services more flexibility in setting speed limits," said Dos Santos-Tam.
The bill would also set a 20-mile per hour speed limit for streets that currently do not have any speed limit established.
For now, the penalty for speeding in a school zone would stay at $322, but that could change.
"If we find that people don't seem to be paying heed then maybe we need to increase the penalties," said Kiaana.
The bill will get a first reading on Wednesday.
Councilmembers Dos Santos-Tam and Kiaana are confident this bill will pass, hopefully by the end of 2024.