Kaua'i fatality renews road safety concerns

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau

WAILUA, Kaua'i — Motorists hugged the guard-rail as a car in the oncoming lane spun down the road toward them in the rain Sunday, but there was nowhere to go.

The driver of the out-of-control car was killed when he was thrown from the vehicle as it was hit by two of the cars trying to avoid him. He was identified as James Dorman, 41, of Kapa'a.

The occupants of the other cars, protected by air bags and seat belts, received minor injuries. Dorman was not wearing a seat belt, said Sgt. Mark Scribner of the Kaua'i Police Department.

Scribner said there is no evidence Dorman was speeding. Scribner suggested that the wet road might have caused the car to slide.

For the drivers in the opposing lane, there were few options to avoid a crash, he said.

Kuhio Highway fronting Wailua Golf Course, the site of the crash, has two lanes northbound and one southbound. Both sides are lined with steel guardrails with insufficient room to pull off, even for a flat tire.

"You can't really pull over. You just have to keep driving until you find a place," said Steve Kyono, state highways engineer for Kaua'i.

In seeking ways to make the roadway safer, highway officials are constrained by a canal along the mauka side of the road and the Wailua Golf Course on the makai side.

The Highways Division of the state Department of Transportation responded to a series of traffic deaths in the same area several years ago by paving the narrow shoulders, resurfacing the rough roadway, and replacing guardrails and signs, Kyono said.

There is little more the state can do without a great deal of expense. There's the canal on one side; utility poles are lined up at roadside on the other.

The second concern is that there are no alternative routes through the area between the Wailua River and Hanama'ulu. An abandoned canefield road along the base of the Kalepa Mountains is in poor repair, Scribner said.

When the fatal crash Sunday closed the road for an hour, and then limited it to alternating one-lane passage for several more hours, drivers found themselves in traffic jams that essentially shut down movement from north and east Kaua'i to south and west Kaua'i for several hours.

Kyono said the only planning under way for the region is the state's new effort to widen Kuhio Highway from Hanama'ulu to Kapa'a or build a bypass. It could be six to 10 years before actual construction.